This is an idea I remember being floated around back in the Immortal days in TNA.The idea was to have the Main Event Mafia return to fight Immortal.  I hardly ever remember a team that is long since gone coming back to face a current stable.  We’ve seen stables fighting each other before but never one that comes back to feud with one.  It’s definitely an interesting idea and if done properly it could create some interesting stories.

Is this something you would be interested in seeing in the future if stables came back as a thing, or should dead stables stay dead?

WWA: The Eruption
Date: April 14, 2002 (Taped April 13, 2002)
Location: Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne, Australia
Commentators: Jeremy Borash, Disco Inferno

Back to these guys again for their third of five PPVs. It’s been about two months since the last show and we have a new world champion in the form of Nathan Jones who won the title about a week before this show. We’ve also got a vacant Cruiserweight Championship as Eddie Guerrero went back to the WWF so it’s mini tournament time! Let’s get to it.

The set looks like a volcano which is appropriate.

Sid Vicious, the commissioner now, is here and using a cane to walk.

A very confused Australian ring announcer screws up the name of the company and welcomes the announcers to the broadcast table that they’ve been at for at least three minutes now. I can understand screwing up the company name as World Wrestling Association as it’s a much more natural name.

International Cruiserweight Title Tournament Semi-Finals: AJ Styles vs. Nova

They slug it out to start as we can hear presumably the director talking through the headsets. Nova sends AJ into the middle buckle but AJ pops back up and runs him over with a shoulder. Nova clotheslines him down but AJ nips up into a hurricanrana to Nova back down. AJ tries another rana but Nova grabs him into a powerbomb position and does some lifts of AJ in an impressive power display before flipping him forward and onto his face for two.

Nova hooks a freaky looking three limb submission hold called Twisted Sister which only lasts for a few seconds. A BIG kick to the face gets two on Styles but Nova misses a Swanton. AJ picks up Nova for the Styles Clash (Director: “Finish.”) to advance to the title match later tonight.

Rating: C+. This was too short to be able to mean much as they were flying through this, no pun intended. The director was really distracting here as he kept talking about times and such like that. They really do need to work on fixing that as it’s really hard to ignore. Still though, good choice for an opener here as AJ would go on to become a big star in the near future.

Scott Steiner is here.

The Starettes dance a bit.

Quick video on Jerry Lynn arriving last month and attacking Eddie Guerrero.

Here’s Sid with something to say. Seeing him in a suit is a very odd sight. He said he needed to hear the fans again, which draws a pretty lame Sid chant. Sid thanks Andrew McManus, the WWA owner, for giving him this chance. He talks about sitting at home thinking he’s done in wrestling when McManus called him and asked him to come to Australia for a show.

As for Scott Steiner, he’s an amazing talent but he doesn’t want to play by the rules of the WWA. Sid officially makes him #1 contender and the match will take place tonight. He says he won’t be perfect but he’s glad to have one more shot at this. This is probably the most coherent you’ll ever hear Sid, which makes this pretty dull stuff.

International Cruiserweight Title Tournament Semi-Finals: Jerry Lynn vs. Chuck E. Chaos

Chaos is an Australian wrestler who gets a good reaction. He jumps Lynn as he comes in and pulls Jerry to the floor for springboard dive. As Chuckie comes back in, Jerry hits the spinning Fameasser and the cradle piledriver to end this in just over a minute.

Disco is having trouble with his audio and we get some bad small talk between him and Jeremy.

Puppet the midget is in the back yelling at some company guy. The audio here is terrible but I think he wants to kill his opponent Teo.

Puppet vs. Teo

Hardcore of course. Puppet runs his mouth before the match but Teo runs in to pound away. A running knee to Teo’s head in the corner is followed by a slingshot headbutt to the groin. Puppet heads to the floor to grab some chairs and here’s your out of context line of the night from Disco: “You have to pay to lick a midget?” Puppet drops Teo on three chairs set up in the middle of the ring for two. Teo hits a TKO for two before they horribly botch I think a Blockbuster.

Teo brings in a garbage can as we hear from the director again. Puppet comes back again (there’s less selling in this match than in Death of a Salesman. How’s THAT for mixing two different worlds?) with a Vader Bomb but Teo punches him down and hits a top rope Swanton bomb for two. Now Puppet is put in a trashcan while Teo pounds away with a chair. Teo brings in a ladder for a big splash onto the trashcan onto Puppet for the pin. I think this was the last midget match from this company.

Rating: D+. The hardcore stuff here kind of works for these guys. I’m still not a fan of them but at least they’re trying out there. Puppet would go on to annoy fans on TNA where he would pull a gun in one of his matches. Thankfully we’ve gotten to better midget wrestling in Hulk Hogan’s Micro Championship Wrestling. Not much else to say here.

Teo molests Steiner’s chick Midajah in the back.

Stevie Ray/Buff Bagwell vs. Ernest Miller/Brian Christopher

Buff and Christopher start things off with Brian dancing around like a schmuck. Instead of fighting Buff poses for a bunch of booing from the crowd. They run the ropes a lot until we get some weak hip tosses and slams. A bulldog puts Bagwell down and it’s off to Miller. Disco sums up the problem with Miller (and the future Brodus Clay) in general: If he wants someone to call his mama, why doesn’t he leave a number?

Bagwell takes Miller down with a swinging neckbreaker before it’s off to Ray for some more slow beating. The not hot tag brings in Christopher who is caught in a backbreaker and a kind of powerbomb for no cover. Off to a lame chinlock from Bagwell followed by a double clothesline to put both guys down. Brian hits an enziguri to set up the double tag so Miller can pound on Ray for a bit. Back to Buff who messes up a sunset flip before Miller does his gyrating. Everything breaks down and Stevie accidentally kicks Buff, allowing Christopher to hit the Hip Hop Drop for the pin on Bagwell.

Rating: D+. They took four guys and threw them into a tag match to fill in about ten minutes. While it wasn’t a good match at all and had ZERO heat from the crowd, what do you expect from guys like this? The match could only be so good given the talent in there, and it never was anything more than what it seemed like: filler.

Post match Christopher and Miller dance a bit. Thankfully the Starettes come out to join them. As do some fans. Disco: “What would Lou Thesz think right now?” Inferno can’t take anymore and tries to get in, only to be beaten up by Christopher and the kids.

Alan Funk, the Funkster, does his Hogan impression before fighting Pierre Ouellette and cutting a weird promo on the Rougeau Family.

Alan Funk vs. Quebecer Pierre

As in from the Quebecers in the early to mid 90s WWF. Before the match Pierre says he’s a former three time tag team champion of the world (take THAT Daniels fans!) before singing the Canadian national anthem. Thankfully (I think?) the Funkster breaks it up but Pierre runs him over and pounds away to start. Funk comes back with a few clotheslines but Pierre pounds him back down. The Hogan impression is decent but it’s not adding anything at all here.

Pierre runs him over again for two and hooks a sleeper. After that goes nowhere, Funk hits a springboard sunset flip for two before walking into a suplex for two for the French Canadian dude. A guillotine legdrop gets two on Funk and it’s time to Hulk Up. The big boot is blocked and Funk gets clotheslined right back down again. A running Liger Bomb sets up a Swanton Bomb for two for Pierre and now it’s the real Hulk Up time. Disco: “I know who he reminds me of now: BOBBY EATON!” They chop it out with Pierre taking over with more power stuff before the big boot and a piledriver set up the legdrop for the pin by Funk.

Rating: D. We get it: he’s a Hogan impersonator. He looks a lot like Hulk and has a few of the mannerisms down, but how much can you get out of something like this? It’s been done MANY times before and Funk really doesn’t do anything new with it. Then again it’s the same kind of thing you would expect from a mid level indy company.

Video on Nathan Jones.

Here are Steiner and Midajah to a big reaction even though he’s a heel. Scott talks about all the women he’s had in Australia and makes fun of Australian sports. Steiner offers to beat up someone from the crowd but here’s Nathan Jones to stare at Scott instead. Thankfully they’ve finally changed the design of the world title and it looks more like a traditional belt. Nathan comes to the ring but Sid (who is shorter than Jones) comes out to say save it for the main event. Steiner talks about how he broke Sid’s body and spirit so Sid says he’ll be the enforcer for the main event.

Video on the cruiserweights in the company.

International Cruiserweight Title: AJ Styles vs. Jerry Lynn

This has a twenty minute time limit. That’s the best they can do for their secondary championship? Don’t bother trying to make it feel important or anything. They head to the mat to start with neither guy being able to get an advantage. Jerry avoids a dropkick and we have a standoff. Styles flips out of a wristlock to put on one of his own and they flip around a lot before both guys try armdrags at the same time, resulting in a Lynn armbar. That’s a new spot for me.

Styles escapes a monkey flip but gets clotheslined down and hit with a backbreaker for two. Off to a surfboard by Lynn followed by a spinning inverted Gory Special. AJ comes back with his moonsault DDT for two and a big kick to the head for two more. Styles tries a tornado DDT but gets caught in a northern lights suplex into the corner instead to put him right back down. AJ knocks him out to the floor and hits a big flip dive to take Jerry down again as selling continues to be a foreign idea.

Back in and the dive gets two as Lynn is bleeding from the mouth a bit. The Styles Clash is countered into a rana from Jerry but AJ counters the cradle piledriver as well. We get a nice long pinfall reversal sequence with about five two counts each. Jerry finally kills AJ dead with a German suplex so Styles comes back with a neckbreaker for two of his own. Lynn hits a sitout powerbomb for two and gets the same off the cradle piledriver. Out of nowhere AJ counters a DDT and hits the Styles Clash for two of his own. AJ goes up top but gets punched in the ribs. Lynn’s superplex is broken up and the Spiral Tap gives AJ the title.

Rating: B-. This was fine for a spot fest but at the same time it felt like they were trying to have a classic rather than having one. The lack of selling was as annoying as ever with both guys taking big moves and popping right back up like it was a single chop. These two would have WAY better matches in TNA but those were a few months away.

Jerry shakes AJ’s hand post match.

A cage is lowered as we recap Devon Storm vs. Sabu. They’re both hardcore and have fought twice already. That’s about it.

Devon Storm vs. Sabu

In a cage as I said and apparently you can only win by pin here but “it doesn’t matter where the pin is”. Why do they have to over complicate these things? Storm hits a quick shoulder block to start and pounds away before Sabu comes back with a springboard DDT for two. Sabu hits a pair of springboard leg lariats for no count before Storm slams Sabu’s back into the cage twice to take over.

Sabu is busted open via another shot to the cage before Storm gets two off a top rope splash. Sabu’s back is bleeding now too. Apparently this fires him up enough to send Storm into the cage to take over. The bleeding guy finds a sharp object from somewhere and starts stabbing away at Storm’s head to bust him open as well. Sabu goes up top, only to get caught in a northern lights superplex to shift momentum again.

Devon finds a chair from somewhere to beat on Sabu with before hitting a northern lights suplex (popular move tonight) onto said chair for no cover. Storm wedges the chair between the ropes and of course gets rammed into it for his efforts. Sabu pelts the chair at Storm’s head before hitting Air Sabu in the corner. Air Sabu against the cage puts Storm down for an Arabian Facebuster but the triple jump moonsault off the cage misses completely.

A Death Valley Driver on the chair gets two for Storm so he goes to the floor (not a win) and sets up a piece of guard rail between the steps and the barricade. Sabu kicks Storm in the face on the floor as both guys are now out of the cage. Sabu pulls out a table and they slug it out a bit. Devon suplexes Sabu onto the bridged piece of railing and we stall a bit more. There’s a table set up next to the ring so Storm pulls out two more in addition to the set one.

Storm stacks another table on the set one as this has stopped being a cage match in any form. A DDT on the floor puts Sabu down for half a second and Storm puts Sabu on the top of the two tables. There’s a BIG dive off the cage to put both guys down yet again. Another table is set up back inside the cage (remember that?) but Storm throws a chair through the door to put Sabu down.

Sabu comes back with a fireball to pop the crowd huge. He puts Devon on the table and hits a moonsault off the top of the cage onto Storm….but the table doesn’t break. An Arabian Facebuster off the top of the cage is FINALLY enough to break the table and get the pin on Storm.

Rating: D. This was violence for the sake of violence which isn’t my style at all. On top of that, having the guys leave the cage is always annoying as it defeats the purpose of having a cage. The big splash through the tables looked great but other than that all we had here were the same brawling spots we’ve already seen from these guys.

The announcers talk about a sweepstakes while the cage is taken down.

Midajah vs. Queen Bea

Evening gown match. Bea is a Penthouse Pet who only had like four matches ever. They can’t wrestle, they look good in their outfits, Bea’s underwear is blue and she loses in less than two and a half minutes. The midgets come out and strip Midajah for fun.

WWA World Title: Nathan Jones vs. Scott Steiner

Scott is challenging here and punches Jones in the corner. Oh and Sid is outside enforcer. Jones beals Scott down and they collide a few times. Steiner flips Jones off which earns him another shoulder from the champion. Jones knocks Steiner to the floor so Steiner knocks Jones to the floor. The champion hits a slingshot clothesline back in for two before pounding away in the corner.

Steiner immediately comes back by shoving Jones over the top and out to the floor. Jones is whipped HARD through a barricade as we continue to hide the severe limitations of both guys. Back inside and Steiner hits a backbreaker to put Nathan down again. There are the pushups followed by some yelling at the fans by the challenger. Off to a lame bow and arrow hold by Steiner and a low blow to keep Jones down. A northern lights suplex (why is that so popular tonight?) keeps Jones in trouble so Steiner can put on…..a Sharpshooter? It’s horrible as you would expect but it’s more strange to see than bad.

We hit a bearhug from Steiner which he ends himself with an overhead belly to belly to put Jones down. Scott pounds away but Jones comes back with a side slam to get himself a breather. A clothesline sets up a very awkward looking elbow drop by the champion who follows that up by literally falling off the top rope on a clothesline attempt. Literally, he fell forward with no vertical leap at all. Jones loads up the chokeslam but Midajah jumps on his back.

Steiner stops to yell at Sid for a bit, causing Jones to try a pair of quick rollups for two. Scott pokes the champion in the eye and slams him down, only to jump into the chokeslam. Midajah makes the save so Sid loads up Midajah for the powerslam. Another referee stops him and in the melee Steiner hits Jones with a belt shot. The Steiner Recliner gives Scott via arm drops.

Rating: D. This wasn’t that good at all. At the end of the day, Jones was all look and almost no substance whatsoever. As bad as he looked beforehand, the falling off the top rope turned the whole thing into an even bigger joke than it already was. Sid was only there as a means to the end of the match and added nothing else. The whole match was a clash of styles and neither guy was good enough to carry the other to anything above terrible.

Sid raises Scott’s hand post match but wants a title match later. Scott leaves without saying anything before coming back to say let’s do it right now. Sid stumbles over saying he’ll fight if he’s able. Now that’s the babbling Vicious we know and love….for some reason.

Overall Rating: D. These shows aren’t very good. Now to be fair at this point there was no TNA so this was literally the best English alternative to WWE. A lot of these guys would go on to appear in TNA but while they were here there wasn’t much to see from them. The show goes by fast but there’s absolutely nothing on here worth seeing. It isn’t terrible but it falls into that category of you see it and never think of it again after a day or so.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Royal Rumble 2007
Date: January 28, 2007
Location: AT&T Center, San Antoino, Texas
Attendance: 13,500
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Tazz, Joey Styles, John Bradshaw Layfield, Michael Cole

We’re back in Texas here and the main question is which Texas guy is winning the Rumble. The main change from last year is that ECW is around now and get to have seven guys in the Rumble because their roster isn’t deep enough to support ten. Other than that we’ve got Cena vs. Umaga in a last man standing match and Batista vs. Kennedy because Kennedy gets a lot of title shots. Let’s get to it.

This is the 20^th Rumble so you know the theme of the opening video already. The other matches get a little hype as well but the Rumble dominates, as it should.

MNM vs. Hardys

Mercury had his face shattered at Armageddon in a ladder match and tonight is about revenge. Jeff is IC Champion here and Matt was given a Snapshot (MNM’s elevated DDT finisher) on the exposed concrete recently. Matt and Nitro start things off but it’s quickly off to Mercury. He goes for Matt’s dislocated jaw but lets Nitro back in for some shots to the ribs. Matt comes back with punches of his own to slow Mercury down in the corner.

Jeff comes in and speeds things up before hitting an atomic drop and legdrop to split the legs of Nitro. Back to Matt who is rubbing his face a lot. A neckbreaker gets two on Nitro but he comes back with a shot to Matt’s jaw to take him right back down. Mercury comes in and slugs away as Matt is playing Ricky Morton for a bit. Back to Nitro for some choking on the ropes and it’s already back to Joey.

Melina does that ear piercing scream of hers and Mercury goes after Matt’s jaw again. Off to a chinlock followed by a hair pull to send Matt to the mat again. Mercury goes to the middle rope but misses an elbow, allowing for the tags to Jeff and Nitro. The sitout gordbuster gets two as everything breaks down. A double suplex puts Nitro down and the Hardys go up for a legdrop from Matt and a splash from Jeff, but the latter hits knees on the way down.

Mercury comes in off the tag and gets two off a knee to the ribs. Nitro does exactly the same before sticking on the ribs for a bit more. Jeff grabs a quick rollup on the incoming Mercury but Joey goes right back to the ribs. Nitro comes in and does the same as MNM continues to keep tagging in and out very quickly. We hit a chinlock with a bodyscissors but Jeff fights out pretty quickly. He still can’t make the tag but finally backdrops Nitro down and makes the tag….which isn’t seen. I love that spot.

Jeff hits a mule kick to take Mercury down and FINALLY makes the hot tag to Matt. Things speed up a lot and Matt fires off elbows to everyone named M or N. A combination bulldog and clothesline takes MNM down for two followed by the yodeling elbow to the back of Nitro’s head. There’s Poetry in Motion to Mercury but one to Nitro misses, as Johnny grabs an Oklahoma Roll for two on Matt. The Side Effect puts Nitro down but Mercury spears Matt to the floor. As he went through the ropes though, Jeff made a blind tag and hits the Swanton on Nitro for the pin.

Rating: B. This took a long time to get going but it was building up to a nice finish. This was old school tag team stuff and that’s hard to screw up. MNM was getting a good rub off the Hardys who were as much of a nostalgia act as you could have at this point. Good stuff here and a hot opener, at least after the tag to Matt.

Coach and Teddy talk trash about brand dominance. Edge comes in to draw and runs into Kelly Kelly, who is an exhibitionist. Edge’s condescending talking to Kelly is hilarious stuff. Orton comes in to draw and threatens to throw his tag title partner out if need be. Edge: “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” Booker walks in and comedy ensues.

Wrestlemania promo. I liked that All Grown Up campaign.

ECW Title: Bobby Lashley vs. Test

Lashley won the title in December and Test is the warm body that he gets to crush in his first major defense. There’s a video package for this which is basically both guys beating up RVD to show how awesome they are. Test powers Lashley back into the corner so the champion comes out with a spear to take over again. Now Test tries to choke, so Lashley suplexes him down. Nice to see them sticking with the same formula. A delayed vertical suplex puts Test on the floor and the champion follows him.

Test sends Lashley into the barricade to take over and we head back in for a chinlock. He shifts into an armbar and hits a Stunner onto the arm for two. Lashley fights out of trouble and backdrops Test before hitting a three point stands shoulder in the corner. He tries a slam but the arm gives out, allowing Test to fire his one big weapon, the big boot, but it only gets two. Lashley pops up with a clothesline to send Test to the floor….and he walks out for the countout.

Rating: D. They needed to protect TEST? Seriously? Lashley doesn’t get to pin TEST clean? The match was dull stuff in the first place before a stupid ending like that. Lashley did what he could out there but Test was as much of a worthless musclehead as you could possibly ask for at this point.

Lashley pulls Test back in and beats him up, which makes you wonder WHY DID THEY NOT DO THIS BEFORE???

Cena gets his broken ribs looked at when Vince comes in to see if Cena wants to forfeit. Vince says he can’t see (get it?) Cena as champion after tonight….and that’s it. I don’t remember them having an issue at this point but whatever.

We recap Mr. Kennedy (Anderson) vs. Batista, which is just Kennedy winning a Beat the Clock challenge and having a great record against former world champions.

Smackdown World Title: Mr. Kennedy vs. Batista

Kennedy slaps Batista to start and takes over as he tries to tie Batista up. Batista slugs him down and gets two off a suplex and we head outside. Kennedy spears/shoves Batista into the steps, injuring Batista’s knee in the process. We get into a regular “hurt the big man’s knee” match which is the smartest thing they could do here. A reverse Figure Four has Batista in trouble but Kennedy gets caught holding the rope.

A running kick to Batista’s face in the corner has the champion in trouble again and a knee to the head gets two. Off to a half crab for a minute or so before Batista fights up and hits a spinebuster to put both guys down. Kennedy kicks him in the face but Batista Hulks Up. There’s a weak slam as the knee is giving out on the champion.

Batista hits a Regal Roll (Kennedy used that a lot) of all things but Kennedy hits the knee to break up the Batista Bomb. The referee gets bumped so there’s no one to count after Kennedy’s neckbreaker. A DDT gets two and JBL is LOSING IT. The fans chant for Kennedy as he goes to the middle rope, only to jump into a clothesline followed by a Batista Bomb to retain the title.

Rating: D+. The psychology was there from Kennedy but Batista didn’t really go along with it. I’m not saying he didn’t sell, but at the end of the day this was only eleven minutes long which isn’t enough time to tell the story they were going for. Also Kennedy didn’t have the Mic Check yet so he didn’t have anything to finish Batista with and everyone knew it. Not a bad match but they needed more than they had here.

Kevin Thorn draws his number. He and Ariel leave and Hornswoggle comes in to terrorize the tumbler. Apparently he’s in the Rumble too and attacks Coach for good measure. Khali comes in and scares Horny off. Kelly makes a stupid joke about holding balls, drawing in Ron Simmons for his usual line.

The Marine is on DVD.

Wrestlemania is coming and Saliva, the band that does the theme song, is in the front row.

We recap Cena vs. Umaga. Cena escaped the last PPV with the title and gave Umaga his first loss so tonight it’s last man standing. Cena is coming into this with bad ribs.

Raw World Title: John Cena vs. Umaga

Cena is defending and this is last man standing. Cena pounds away to start but Umaga barely moves. Umaga gets in a shot to the ribs and Cena falls to the outside, clutching his ribs. The champ gets sent into the steps and it’s all Umaga in the early going. They slug it out in the aisle and all of a sudden Cena’s punches work better. He tries to ram Umaga face first into the apron but Umaga screams and hits Cena in the ribs again.

Back in and Cena is in even more trouble with Umaga pounding on the ribs. A clothesline puts Cena down and Umaga brings in the steps. Cena knocks him off the apron though and throws the steps down onto Umaga’s (hands covering) head. It looked a lot better when Kane did it because you couldn’t see the hands but whatever. That draws a six count but more importantly it allows Cena to get a breather.

Umaga superkicks Cena down and it’s off to a bearhug. Since there are no submissions, Umaga lets Cena go and brings in some more steps. The steps are set up in the corner but Cena avoids the running hip attack (SEE??? IT WAS UMAGA AND NOT RIKISHI!!! SCREW YOU WWE ANNOUNCERS!!!) and blasts Umaga in the head with the steps. That only gets seven so Cena goes up and jumps into a spinning Rock Bottom, drawing some loud screams from the champ.

The Samoan cannonballs down onto Cena’s ribs but Cena finally knees him in the crotch to slow Umaga down. The Protobomb sends Umaga onto the steps but only gets about five as Cena hits the Shuffle to break the count. Cena tries the FU but Umaga’s weight causes Cena to fall face first into the steps. John is busted open so the fans tell him that he sucks. Ignore the fact that almost no one else could get a match this good out of Umaga I guess.

Cena gets up at eight and gets punched in the face some more, only to start Hulking Up. He pounds away on Umaga but walks into a Samoan Drop, driving the ribs and Cena’s shoulder into the mat. The Samoan Spike is blocked (for the life of me I do not get why they picked a thumb to the neck for Umaga’s finisher. The guy is a MONSTER and he pokes you in the neck?) so Umaga headbutts Cena down instead.

Umaga puts him in the Tree of Woe but Cena sits up in the corner to avoid a running headbutt. The top rope Fameasser takes Umaga down and Cena sends him shoulder first into the post. They head to the floor and Cena is covered in blood. With Umaga still laying over the ropes, Cena BLASTS HIM with a monitor to the head to put him down. Back to the floor but Umaga catches a diving Cena and drives him back first into the post.

Umaga puts Cena on the announce table and runs along the other tables, only to miss a splash and crash onto the ground. That gets nine and Cena has no idea what to do next. Estrada, Umaga’s manager, unhooks the top rope and tells Umaga to use the metal pole to blast Cena in the head. Cena catches a charging Umaga with the FU and hits him in the head with the pole. He hooks a kind of STF with the ring rope and Umaga is passing out. Umaga starts fighting up so Cena chokes him even more. FINALLY Umaga is out and Cena retains the title.

Rating: B+. This was a FIGHT which is what a last man standing match is supposed to do. I was digging the story they were telling here with Cena fighting a savage but having to become a savage himself to beat him. The fans didn’t like him at this point, but screw them as would you really rather have Umaga as champion? This was one of many awesome matches Cena had in this stretch, but OH NO kids like him so he must suck right? Give me a break.

Sandman draws his number and has a beer. Flair comes in to draw and gets hit on by Kelly. We get adult music and Extreme Expose comes in to dance with Flair, complete with club lighting. Not that I’m complaining about Layla, Brooke (Tessmacher) and Kelly dancing in barely there outfits, but WHY DID THAT HAPPEN???

Rumble video. Not much else to say here as I’m sure you get the idea by now. This is more of a history package than a hype video for this year. The theme of this year is how star studded it is. Seven guys are from ECW so I question this premise.

Royal Rumble

Flair is #1 (second time for that along with drawing #3 one year. He really doesn’t have a great record in these things) and Finlay is #2. Finlay drops Flair with a quick shoulder and we have ninety second intervals here. Flair chops away in the corner but gets backdropped down for his efforts. Kenny Dykstra of Spirit Squad fame and currently in a small feud with Flair is #3. Flair chops away at him in the corner and Finlay tries to dump Kenny.

Everyone hits everyone for awhile until Matt Hardy is #4. That’s a pretty diverse group of guys to start things off. The young and old guys pair off with Finlay and Kenny taking over. Matt takes over on Finlay and Edge is #5. Hardy avoids a spear and hits a Twist of Fate but gets taken down with a double clothesline with Kenny. Ric throws in a chair but Edge easily throws him out instead. Kenny tries to take credit despite doing nothing, so Edge throws him out too.

Tommy Dreamer is #6 and takes down Edge of all people before getting beaten up in the corner by Finlay. Sabu is #7 and actually doesn’t bring any weapons with him. Instead he finds a table under the ring and sets it up at ringside before going in to fight Dreamer. Nothing of note happens for now so here’s Gregory Helms at #8. Finlay is sent to the apron but he hangs onto the bottom rope.

The Irishman almost sends Sabu through the table but Sabu hangs on. Now Helms teases going through it but saves himself as well. Shelton Benjamin is #9 and goes for Hardy. Benjamin and Finlay both nearly go out but somehow both survive. They’ve teased that table being broken about five times already. Kane is #10 and immediately pounds away on everyone. There’s a chokeslam to Edge and an elimination for Dreamer and Sabu, the latter being chokeslammed through the table. Law of wrestling #1: you set up the table, you’re going through it.

CM Punk is #11 and is immediately called boring by JBL for not smoking and drinking. Finlay sends CM to the apron but can’t get him out. There’s the running knee to Edge’s head in the corner from Punk but again he can’t get an elimination. King Booker is #12 and dumps Helms pretty quickly. We’ve currently got Finlay, Hardy, Edge, Shelton, Kane, Booker and Punk.

Super Crazy is #13 and is knocked down by Kane before he can do much else. JBL mentions that Mil Mascaras owes him money, which he said on Raw a few months ago. I wonder if there’s something to that. Booker and Finlay go at it until Jeff Hardy is #14. The Hardys team up on Finlay (smart) before shifting over to Edge. Now they go after Kane for some reason and hit Poetry in Motion. Sandman is #15 and is gone in as many seconds thanks to Booker.

Jeff skins the cat to save himself and Orton is #16. Hopefully he and Edge (tag champions) can clear things out a bit. Yep there goes Super Crazy and Matt takes the backbreaker. Rated-RKO throws out both Hardys and things are a lot clearer now. Benoit is #17 and fires away chops at everyone. Finlay takes a German as Punk is teetering on the apron. Now Benjamin takes a German and RVD is #18.

Van Dam fires off kicks all around and Kane throws Booker out. Booker, ever the jerk, goes back in and throws out Kane. He beats on the Big Bald on the floor which didn’t set up a Mania match surprisingly enough. Viscera is #19 as things slow down a bit. We’ve got Finlay, Edge, Benjamin, Punk, Orton, Benoit, Van Dam and Viscera in there at the moment. Nitro is #20 and things are getting too full again.

Punk gets crushed in the corner by Viscera for awhile and Shelton hangs on by inches. That was impressive. Kevin Thorn is #21 and no one is really doing anything at the moment. Hardcore Holly is #22 and that’s not going to pick anything up. A bunch of guys go after Viscera and Shawn is #23. He’s in DX mode and you know he’s the hometown boy here. Shawn hits a Thesz Press on Finlay and clotheslines him out before superkicking Viscera, allowing a huge group of guys to dump him.

Shelton is gone at Shawn’s hands too. The ring is FINALLY cleared out a bit now until Masters is #24. Nitro goes up top like a schmuck and gets dumped by Benoit. Chavo Guerrero is #25 and Benoit dumps Thorn in the same fashion that he dumped Big Show in 04. Van Dam goes up, can’t find anyone to kick, and hops back down. MVP is #26 as Orton tries to dump Punk.

Nothing happens AGAIN until Carlito is #27. There are way too many people in the ring again. Shawn is sent to the apron but you know he’s not going out yet. Great Khali is #28 and swings his arms a lot on the way to the ring. The match stops as Khali gets in and he beats everyone down. Khali dumps Holly as Miz is #29. He lasts a good seven seconds and there’s only one man left. Van Dam is thrown out as are Punk and Carlito. Chavo gets dumped as well and Shawn gets chokebombed. Things look hopeless but heeeeeeeeeeere’s Taker at #30.

This gives us a final group of Edge, Orton, Michaels, MVP, Khali and Taker. Taker and Khali slug it out with everyone else down. The Dead Man finally puts Khali out with a clothesline and everyone else gets beaten down as well. MVP is eliminated and tries to get a chair but Orton takes it away and cracks Taker in the head with it. Edge tries to spear Orton down but gets scared off by the chair. Instead of going after Edge though, Orton hits the RKO on Shawn to send him down to the floor but not out.

Rated-RKO goes after Taker and we’re in a handicap match at this point. Taker fights back but can’t hit a double chokeslam. He can however hit a double clothesline while being busted open. Snake Eyes and the big boot drop Edge but as Taker goes to chokeslam Orton, Edge spears Taker down. A BIG chair shot to the head drops Taker again and it’s Conchairto time. Shawn comes back in and backdrops Orton out before superkicking Edge out to get us down to two.

The fans are WAY into this all of a sudden as Taker sits up. He looks over at Shawn and there’s the nipup. The showdown is on and Shawn pounds away in the corner to no avail. Shawn kicks the chair to the floor and gets launched into the corner so Taker can pound away even more. Shawn is knocked upside down in the corner but punches his way to safety. Shawn does a Flair Flip to the apron but Taker misses a big boot, sending HIM to the apron as well. Shawn charges into an elbow and both guys are back in.

A neckbreaker puts Taker down but Shawn can’t follow up. They slug it out and Taker kicks Shawn’s head off to take over again. Taker lifts him for a suplex and wisely puts him on the apron instead of down onto the mat. Shawn fights back and goes up, only to get crotched. Taker loads up a superplex but gets knocked down so Shawn can hit the flying elbow. Chin Music is caught and there’s a chokeslam but Taker can’t follow up. The tombstone is countered into a superkick and both guys are down again. Taker catches another superkick and dumps Shawn to the floor, nearly silencing the fans in the process.

Rating: C+. The ending stuff starting with Khali cleaning house until Taker dumps Shawn out is GREAT, but until then it’s pretty dull with way too much laying around and too many people in there. The ending here is pretty questionable too as Shawn is in his hometown and would wind up being in the actual main event of Mania anyway. Taker would beat Batista for the Smackdown Title, which makes you wonder why they didn’t have Shawn win for the big hometown win here, as the results literally would have been THE EXACT SAME THING. Not a great Rumble at all but the ending helps it a lot.

Overall Rating: C+. There are two long matches here and both of them are solid enough so I can’t complain much here. The stuff that is good is good and the stuff that is bad is bad, so while it’s not terrible, this definitely isn’t a must see show. Shawn and Taker are of course great together and would have some masterpieces at Mania in the coming years, but they couldn’t make this a great show on their own.

Ratings Comparison

Hardys vs. MNM

Original: B-

Redo: B

Bobby Lashley vs. Test

Original: D-

Redo: D

Batista vs. Mr. Kennedy

Original: B-

Redo: D+

John Cena vs. Umaga

Original: C

Redo: B+

Royal Rumble

Original: B

Redo: C+

Overall Rating

Original: B

Redo: C+

Man I REALLY liked that ending last time. I have no idea what I was thinking on the world title matches though.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/01/26/royal-rumble-count-up-2007-the-best-spot-finally-wins/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Clash of the Champions 18
Date: January 21, 1992
Location: Kansas Expo Center, Topeka, Kansas
Attendance: 5,500
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Jim Ross

Time for another Clash, but this time it’s from a better era. This is during the Dangerous Alliance period, where the top heels in the company banded together to fight Sting and whoever he could get to back him up. However, he needed to win the world title first nad we need to set up that match tonight. Also we get Cactus Jack vs. Van Hammer in a falls count anywhere match which I remember fairly well. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about Heyman wanting to take over the company with the Dangerous Alliance.

As usual Eric and Missy are more or less the hosts.

Vader/Mr. Hughes vs. Steiner Brothers

Scott vs. Hughes gets us going. The Steiners are insanely popular. Scott throws Hughes around for a few minutes and that’s exactly what I wanted to see. That’s what the Steiners were awesome at: throwing big guys around like it was no big deal. Hughes powers him to the corner and everything breaks down. The Steiners get sent to the floor so they wait for the monsters to pose and both go to the top at the same time. A double Steiner Line off the same corner gives the Steiners the momentum again.

Vader vs. Rick now and Vader goes old school monster on him. There’s a gorilla press and a splash in the corner but Rick keeps getting up because that’s what he does. Steiner Line takes Vader down and there’s an overhead belly to belly (great one too). Rick knocks him to the floor and dives off the apron, but gets caught and rammed into the post. Back in and Rick throws Vader off the top with a belly to belly superplex.

Off to Scott and the Steiners are all fired up here. Scott gets the best German suplex you’ll ever see to a guy the size of Vader. He goes up but his cross body is countered into a powerslam and a splash keeps Scott down. Tag to Hughes and it’s off to Rick soon thereafter. HUGE backdrop and Hughes is in trouble. Everything breaks down again and Vader accidentally hits Hughes. Vader and Scott go to the floor and the Steiner Bulldog ends Hughes.

Rating: B. That’s probably high but I’m a sucker for the Steiners throwing everyone all over the place like it’s nothing. They were so far and away better than all of the other teams at this point and it was very clear. Anderson and Eaton were champions at this point and the Steiners would get the titles back in just a few months.

Terry Taylor/Tracy Smothers vs. Brian Pillman/Marcus Bagwell

Tracy is still part of the Young Pistols and Taylor is the Taylor Made Man. According to Ross, a standard backhand chop is a judo chop. Didn’t know that. Pillman cleans house on his own and speeds things up but walks into a backbreaker for two. Off to Bagwell and the good guys clear the ring with a double dropkick. There are some double dives to the outside and Taylor/Smothers are in trouble.

We get back to normal with Bagwell vs. Smothers and Tracy hits what was either a dropkick or a superkick to take over. We hear about Bagwell hanging out with Sting a lot lately as Tracy beats him up. He avoids a shot though and here’s Pillman again. A spinwheel kick gets two for Pillman. The heels double team to slow Brian down and Taylor suplexes him to the floor.

Pillman gets rammed into the post which gets two back in the ring for Tracy. Gutwrench powerbomb gets the same for Taylor. Back to Smothers and a jumping back elbow sends Pillman out to the barricade again. He comes back in with a springboard clothesline and it’s hot tag to Bagwell. Everything breaks down and Bagwell gets a surprise sunset flip on Smothers for the three count.

Rating: C+. Fun tag match here with Pillman flying all over the place and just being awesome. Smothers and Taylor are two guys that I’m not wild on but they did their thing here and it worked well enough. Bagwell was still a glorified rookie at this point but he never really developed past anything slightly above average, which is pretty telling.

Video on Jushin Thunder Liger. He and Pillman will tear the house down at SuperBrawl II for the Light Heavyweight Title which Liger recently won from Pillman.

Richard Morton vs. Johnny B. Badd

Badd is pretty new at this point and is still the gay character that we don’t acknowledge as being gay. He takes off the rainbow colored robe to put on a pink and blue boa. Badd has to fire the Badd Blaster (confetti gun) before we can get going. He tries to punch Morton so Morton wisely hides in the ropes. Double axe off the middle rope gives Badd control. A bad looking atomic drop by Morton lets him send Badd to the floor. Badd gets a sunset flip for two. This isn’t meshing at all. Powerslam gets two for Johnny. They slug it out and Morton tries a cross body which Badd rolls through for the pin.

Rating: F. Just awful here and the ending looked horrible with Morton barely running when he hit the cross body. It took Badd a few years but he would get way better. The Light Heavyweight division never worked like it was supposed to because they had no idea that there was a difference between being small and knowing how to wrestle small.

Badd and Pillman are with Bischoff and Badd puts a lips sticker on Eric’s cheek. They both want to fight Liger. Pillman gives a bizarre speech about Japanese automakers and how he’s defending the honor of Americans and bringing the title back to America. And then Badd puts lips on Brian’s cheek, earning him a right hand. I have no idea if that was a heel promo or not.

PN News vs. Diamond Dallas Page

Page is a manager recently turned wrestler and more or less is a jobber here. News is a very fat white rapper. He raps a bit before the match. This makes JR’s from two nights ago look bearable. Page (in a singlet) jumps him to start and they try running the ropes for a few seconds, but News can’t do it due to high levels of fat. News tries a dropkick to send Page to the floor as the announcers shill the WCW Hotline. All News until he misses an elbow. Page hammers away and gets two off a Russian legsweep. For some reason he tries a slam and guess how well that goes. News hits a belly to belly and a top rope splash for the pin.

Rating: D-. Barely better than the previous match but Page was trying. The problem was that he wasn’t very good yet. News….you’re fat and you need to go away. The match was nothing to see and was there to get News on TV, because WCW was stupid enough to think that was a good idea.

Here’s the WCW Top Ten.

10. Larry Zbyszko
9. El Gigante
8. Big Van Vader
7. Dustin Rhodes
6. Cactus Jack
5. Rick Steiner
4. Ricky Steamboat
3. Steve Austin
2. Sting
1. Rick Rude

Kip Allen Frey is introduced as the new boss of WCW. Why WCW insisted on having actual executives on TV as the boss characters is beyond me. They FINALLY woke up in like 1995 and had a character played by a wrestler (I mean Bockwinkel, not Watts, who actually was the boss). Frey was actually really good at what he did though, and SuperBrawl II would be proof of that. He had a very interesting policy: whoever had the best match at a televised show received (I believe) a $5000 cash bonus. Think that might get people motivated? He announces Sting vs. Luger for the title at SuperBrawl II.

The other thing Frey does is bring out the newest WCW color commentator: Jesse Ventura. This was a legit big deal and was probably the first high profile guy they took from Vince in a very long time. Jesse puts over WCW as the future and says he’ll be debuting soon, which also was at SuperBrawl.

Tony brings out Sting who high fives Jesse on the way to the ring. Luger (recorded) says he’s been gone to get ready for the match. In reality, he only had one contracted appearance left so he just sat out for two months. His match with Sting was HORRIBLE, and in one of the rare instances in history, it can be completely blamed on one guy instead of two as Luger didn’t care at all and gave maybe a 4% effort. Sting signs and the match is on.

For those of you wondering about Frey, he would be fired after the PPV because of an unspecified reason. The common answer is he was actually good at his job and that was simply unacceptable in WCW.

Cactus Jack vs. Van Hammer

Hammer was a guy that made David Otunga look like Lou Thesz in the ring, but man was he popular. After Sting and Hogan, he was probably my favorite when I was a kid. Jack is a crazy man and this is falls count anywhere. Hammer has a guitar with him and fires something out of the end of it into Jack’s eyes. A slingshot cross body gets two about a second after the bell.

A big leg gets one (he would usually use a big boot beforehand. Hammer was tall and blonde. You figure it out) and Jack takes over. Cactus Clothesline puts them on the floor where Cactus gets two. Jack peels back the mats on the floor and jumps off the second rope with a sunset flip, hurting himself more than Hammer. They’re on the ramp now and we get a wrestling hold in the form of a sleeper by Jack.

Powerslam on the ramp gets two for Hammer. This is a very hard hitting match. Jack keeps clotheslining him down while Hammer tries to wrestle. Hammer throws Jack off the ramp where he lands with a thud. A clothesline to the floor gets two. They brawl to the back as the fans boo (no big screens yet) and we take a break. The stuff after the break was taped earlier, because it’s 1992 and that’s how they rolled back then.

They’re out in the parking lot and Jack hits him with a 2×4. A traffic cone to the head and they fight over to the bulls that are in place for an upcoming rodeo. Missy Hyatt is there to get on my nerves. Hammer chokes him with a rope so they climb into the pen with the bulls. Abdullah the Butcher pops up dressed as a cowboy and whacks Hammer with a shovel by mistake so Jack can get the pin.

Rating: B-. Before the break, this was a SICK brawl. Post break, it goes downhill quickly. Butcher as a cowboy is a very strange vision and not one that I need to see every day. Hammer would never really mean much after this which is probably the best thing that could have happened to everyone involved. It has nothing on Sting vs. Jack but it’s still good.

Butcher and Jack fight a bit with Butcher throwing Missy into a water trough.

Freebirds vs. Brad Armstrong/Big Josh

The Birds are now faces and no one cared. I mean no one AT ALL cared. They’re still singers and have a song nowhere near as good as Badstreet USA. They dance through the crowd and I want this to end already. Big Josh is a lumberjack that liked to dance with bears. Armstrong used to be a Freebird lackey in a mask (never acknowledged as the same guy). Hayes and Armstrong start us off.

The Birds, despite being a long running tag team, really doesn’t work together all that well. Granted that might be due to Garvin not being all that good. Off to Josh who has far better luck. He stomps on Hayes’ ribs and I think this is face vs. face but I’m really not sure. Back to Garvin and Josh punches him for awhile too. They ram heads which has no effect on Garvin at all. Back to Armstrong who hits a bunch of dropkicks. Everything breaks down and the Birds cheat to hit a double DDT on Armstrong for the pin.

Rating: F. This was one of the worst tag matches I’ve ever seen. The song didn’t help either with the title being “I’m a Freebird, What’s Your Excuse?” This was horrible and thankfully the Birds weren’t around much longer after this. It didn’t work at all and was one of the worst matches I can remember in a long time.

Video on the Steiners and how awesome they are. We get some clips of them winning huge matches and hear about Scott’s arm tearing apart and putting him on the shelf for a long time.

The Steiners say they’ll get the titles back because they never lost them fairly.

Vinnie Vegas vs. Tommy Rich

Vegas is more famous by his real name: Kevin Nash. Vegas is in suspenders, a white collared shirt and dress pants. Snake Eyes end this in less than a minute.

Dangerously says that someone is getting taken out tonight. He lists off what might happen to each of them and it’s classic Heyman. You can see in his eyes how fired up he is here. He gets in the great line of someone is going to the Magnum TA Wrestling Retirement Home.

Arn Anderson/Bobby Eaton/Larry Zbyszko vs. Barry Windham/Dustin Rhodes/Ron Simmons

Windham still has a bad hand due to Zbyszko. Eaton vs. Windham starts us off and Barry is all fired up. It works against him though and he gets caught in a superplex which he no sells. Big lariat puts Bobby down and Windham hits his own lariat (his finisher) for two. Everything breaks down and the Alliance is all put in Figure Fours. Off to Larry vs. Ron with Larry trying to use power on him for some reason. Arn and Larry combined can’t overpower him.

Ron is beating them up all on his own. For some reason Barry and Dustin just let him fight on his own and to be fair, it’s working pretty well. Off to Dustin and they work on Larry’s arm. Bobby comes in and Dustin is all fired up, throwing him over the top (behind the referee’s back) and hitting a huge diving clothesline to the ramp. Off to Larry vs. Barry and Barry misses a lariat. That’s the big feud to this match as Zbyszko and Anderson broke Barry’s hand at Halloween Havoc.

Off to Dustin and he misses a cross body, sending him flying and therefore crashing onto the ramp. Dustin takes a cell phone shot to the ribs and the Alliance is in control. Back in the Anderson Spinebuster gets two. Dustin gets in some punches but walks into a DDT. Arn’s cover is delayed though so it’s only two. Off to Eaton who hits a top rope elbow instead of the Alabama Jam for two.

Eaton misses a corner charge but Anderson saves the tag. Then we get to the big problem Arn has in his matches. Dustin is on the mat and Arn goes to the middle rope. He jumps off with a double axe handle and Dustin hits a boot to the jaw. What in the world was Arn going for, since he was jumping at the feet of Dustin the whole time? Either way it’s off to Barry vs. Larry Z and everything breaks down. Eaton comes off the top and jumps into the cast on Barry’s hand and that’s good for the pin.

Rating: B. Very fun tag match here and it shows the reason the Dangerous Alliance worked: everyone on the team was REALLY good and considering they only feuded with talented guys, the matches were almost a guaranteed awesome showcase. JR called the Alliance an All-Star team in this match and that’s about as good of a description as you can give them.

Tony is with the winning team in the back and Barry says he doesn’t care who says what because he’s coming for revenge. Awesome stuff again as Windham is all fired up.

Sting/Ricky Steamboat vs. Rick Rude/Steve Austin

Austin is TV Champion and Rude is US Champion. My goodness Sting is ridiculously popular. Remember that Top Ten thing earlier? Check out #1-#4. Steamboat vs. Austin starts us off and Austin still has hair here. Jesse has joined commentary to replace Tony here. Ricky takes over to start and Steve has no idea what to do with him. Steamboat gets a bunch of two counts on Steve and fires off a superkick to knock him down. Rude takes a kick as well and the ring is cleared.

Rude comes in and he wants Sting. He slaps some of the paint off him and here’s the Stinger to the biggest pop of the night. Rude, ever the heel, hides in the corner immediately. Sting hits a pair of atomic drops and we get the best selling ever of that move. Sting rakes the back and we get some classic Jesse/face commentator banter of how can Sting do that and claim to be a hero.

Sting hooks a modified camel clutch for some reason. Rude’s ribs are his strong point so why put a hold on them? Now it’s Steamboat and they do the non-tag thing. The fans swear they did though and that’s good enough. They do it again as Austin tries to come in. JR, speaking of Sting: “Well he’s the legal man! That’s what you want right?” Sting tries to cannonball down onto Rude’s ribs but does the Anderson spot and lands balls first on the knees.

Austin vs. Sting in what would have drawn at least seven figure buys in 1998. Rude hooks a front facelock and keeps Sting from tagging. Back to Austin who punches the mat in an attempt to block a sunset flip and there’s the hot tag to Steamboat. Rude takes his head off as Sting was trying to come in and the Alliance controls some more. Austin avoids a rollup and everything breaks down. Sting and Austin fight up the ramp and then they come back. That was kind of pointless but whatever. Austin picks up Steamboat but Sting dives off the top with a crossbody and both pin Austin at the same time.

Rating: B. Remember the previous reason as why the six man was good? Same reason here but with four guys and better talent involved. The Alliance angle had YEARS worth of material in it but instead they lasted about six months because this is WCW. The Alliance was one of the greatest gatherings of talent ever, but it never became a memorable team because of WCW’s incompetence in promoting stars.

By the way, everything in that last sentence starting with the word one was from Arn Anderson, not me. So it’s not just my opinion but from someone on the team itself.

Rude and Austin annihilate Steamboat post match, whipping him with a belt as Sting tries to protect him.

Overall Rating: B+. This was a free TV show and we got pretty much 80% good stuff. When’s the last time you remember 80% of Raw or Impact being good to very good? The first half of 1992 was pure gold for WCW and once Luger’s laziness left and Sting got the title, it was all gravy for a long time. Then Vader came in and Sting had his best matches ever with him, so it got even better. Good show, but I still like 17 better I think.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Yesterday I watched Edge vs. Ziggler from the 2011 Rumble. I just finished Punk vs. Ziggler from the 2012 Rumble. On Monday I saw Cena vs. Ziggler on Raw. My conclusion:

Ziggler is the exact same worker he was two years ago. He hasn’t gotten any better other than having a superkick instead of the sleeper now.  His talking has gotten a bit better, but at the end of the day he’s about 95% the same guy that he was back in 2011.   That’s not a good sign for a guy who is allegedly the future of the company.

No Way Out 2006
Date: February 19, 2006
Location: 1st Mariner Arena, Baltimore, Maryland
Attendance: 11,000
Commentators: Michael Cole, Tazz

This is a show that is talked about a lot for one specific match but it’s really a two match show. The main event here is Angle vs. Taker for the title in what is one of the first real influences of MMA on this as more or less this is a striking vs. submission match and is considered an excellent match by almost everyone I’ve heard talk about it. I’ve never seen it all the way through though.

The other match here is Orton vs. Rey as Eddie’s push continues despite being, you know, dead. Eddie won the Royal Rumble so tonight we have Rey vs. Orton for Eddie’s Mania match. Orton had gone insane with his heel level, saying Eddie was burning. This is the match for Eddie’s Mania match. Other than that the show looks bad. Let’s get to it.

And since I can’t make a joke on here without some moron calling me out on this, yes, I know Rey won the Rumble and eventually the title at Mania. I say it was Eddie doing it because the vast majority of his angle and push was there because of Eddie and his death.

The opening video is all about those four guys, which makes sense as that’s all that this show meant at all.

Cruiserweight Title: Gregory Helms vs. Brian Kendrick vs. Funaki vs. Kid Kash vs. Nunzio vs. Paul London vs. Psicosis vs. Scotty 2 Hotty vs. Super Crazy

Yeah it’s a 9 way match. Helms is champion and ran his mouth so this is his punishment. The intros take nearly five minutes. Thankfully some guys come out together. No tagging here and it’s one fall to a finish. Who wants to bet that Helms escapes with the title? He won it last month so yeah I’m thinking he’s keeping it. Helms hides on the floor while the other eight guys pound on each other.

The Mexicools hits stereo planchas to take out London and Kendrick. Helms finally gets in and they all jump him as he more or less said he was better than all of them. Obviously I can’t go through every spot and type it up here as it’s a huge mess the whole way through. There are WAY too many people in there and it’s just wasting time until we get to the ending sequence.

Helms and Kash go at it for a bit which gets us nowhere. Helms is sent to the floor as this continues to be six or seven guys lay down while two or three do stuff. Kash gets a sweet rana to take down Psicosis on the floor. Londrick takes out Nunzio and Funaki and then do it again off the top to those same two plus Scotty. Helms misses the Shining Wizard and Crazy gets a big spin kick for two.

London hits Helms with a senton back splash that crushes Helms’ face. London gets kicked in the face by Scotty who then has to do the Worm on Helms. The long wait allows Psicosis to break it up. That should teach Scotty but it won’t of course because he’s a stupid man. Dead Level (brainbuster, but looks like a suplex here) from Kash hits Psicosis but Crazy hits a moonsault out of nowhere. Helms steals the pin to retain. Wow how shocked I am at that.

Rating: C-. Total meh match here. These multi-man matches are supposed to be insane and all that jazz and for the most part they are, but dude, NINE PEOPLE? There’s no way to follow is and it’s the living definition of a match with no flow because you can’t have any. It was ok, but WAY too many people out there which brought it down a lot.

Booker and Sharmell say Booker is injured and can’t defend his US Title tonight. Teddy doesn’t believe him. Since he’s got a midcard title, he’s facing Benoit which he did about 100 times. Sharmell begs to keep Booker out of the ring as does Booker. Teddy doesn’t care and the match is still on. Total waste of time.

Some overly perky chick that I don’t know wants to talk about Mania but Finlay cuts her off. He doesn’t have a fight tonight so he’s going to pick one. He picks up the chick and apparently she’s Krystal. That’s Lashley’s wife I believe. He comes out to the ring with her over his shoulder.

Yep here’s the Boss to save her and beat the crap out of Finlay for like two seconds. No mention of the marriage/girlfriend thing. Lashley has a match with JBL coming up so cue up that bell!

John Bradshaw Layfield vs. Bobby Lashley

Bradshaw sprints to the ring to beat up Lashley as Finlay bails and we start the match. He rams Lashley’s head into the buckle and Bobby shakes it off. JBL: “Oh dang it!” That was funny. Lashley is more or less brand new here so he’s the undefeated monster at this point. Jillian is JBL’s image consultant so she’s out there with him. Lashley gets a belly to belly overhead on the floor and JBL is in trouble.

You can tell JBL is more or less carrying this as Lashley just does power stuff. Loud JBL SUCKS chant. He actually manages to hit a top rope elbow for two. It looked horrible but imagine him going to the top and dropping an elbow. That’s pretty impressive. Lashley has had very little offense this whole match. They slug it out and Lashley manages to take over a bit.

Lashley gets caught in a sleeper though as the crowd falls asleep along with them. It’s weird to see that JBL towers over him for some reason. Not really sure why but it just kind of is. JBL goes up again and gets caught in a powerslam. That looked cool for some reason. Lashley busts out three straight belly to bellies. Ok make that four. That’s borderline Scott Steiner territory and that’s not a good thing.

Clothesline From JBL misses and Lashley gets two off a t-bone suplex. Finlay comes out and throws Tony Chimmel into the ring. With the distraction he gets the shillelagh into Lashley’s throat and the Clothesline From JBL ends this. Yes, a main event jobber is the guy to break the winning streak. Well sure why not.

Rating: D. The match was boring, the booking was stupid and the ending was bogus. Seriously, why should JBL, a year removed from being world champion and on the verge of becoming an announcer, get to beat Lashley for the first time? They couldn’t set up Lashley vs. Finlay later? This made my head hurt and the match was pretty boring on top of that. Just bad stuff.

JBL’s eye was busted open and it might be legit as I don’t remember him getting anything worthy of having it busted. Oh yeah that’s real.

They show Lashley leaving as I guess we’re supposed to be all caring here?

Ad for the Bret DVD, which is well worth seeing.

Big Time Mania ad. Big Time was the ad campaign that year and it sucked.

Chimmel brings out Batista who is out with an injury. He had to forfeit the title which Angle won in a battle royal. He says he’s going to keep this short and that he’s here for three reasons. Number one is he wants to see Angle vs. Taker. Second is he misses the fans and the audience. The third reason is his arm isn’t torn anymore. He wouldn’t be back until July so maybe it was a bit worse than he thought.

Orton is talking to Angle and says that he’ll be champion when Batista gets back. Angle doesn’t respect him apparently. Kurt more or less blows him off.

We see Josh with JBL at the interview area online and he has glasses and long hair. Weird.

MNM vs. Matt Hardy/???

This is an open challenge. MNM is Mercury, Nitro and Melina. Nitro is more famous as Morrison now. Matt took them up on it but we don’t know who the partner is. MNM are the Smackdown tag champions here so of course this is non-title. Here’s Matt, and here’s his partner.

MNM vs. Matt Hardy/Tatanka

This is like an indy show nightmare. Tatanka is in a non-title tag team match with Matt Hardy on PPV in 2006. WHAT THE HECK? Zero reaction as you probably would have guessed. Tatanka came back at the Rumble and would eventually turn heel and start a feud with Lashley before leaving before they had any contact. Hardy and Mercury start us off here.

Somehow Matt is the big star here. Off to Tatanka and Mercury is in trouble. Sweet goodness this is uninteresting beyond belief. Tazz: who’s going to challenge MNM. Cole: Matt Hardy and Tatanka? Point for Cole. Melina gets in Hardy’s face and slaps the heck  out of him. Tatanka comes in to chop a lot. Melina rakes his eyes and MNM takes over again. Sweet merciful crap this is boring.

The heels double team Tatanka as I want to find a bag to put over my head to avoid having to watch this. Suffocation is sounding good right now. You can hear Hardy calling Tatanka Chris which probably isn’t the best thing in the world to hear. Tatanka catches Mercury coming off the top in an atomic drop but Nitro comes in to keep the tag from happening. And that completely fails as Matt comes in a few seconds later.

Matt cleans house as this is still completely uninteresting. Twist of Fate is blocked and Nitro gets a superkick to Hardy. Both members of MNM have been in the ring for like a minute and Tatanka doesn’t seem to mind his partner doing double duty. Back to Tatanka and we get stereo Twist of Fate and Papoose To Go to end this. Was there ANY point to this at all?

Rating: D. It was boring, it wasn’t interesting, and Tatanka was the best they could come up with? Was Shannon Moore not available? Somehow he would have been a better choice. This was just awful as the fans didn’t care and this went nowhere at all. I can’t even say it was short as it went over ten minutes. Bad match.

The first hour and 15 minutes of this have absolutely sucked if you didn’t get that.

Another Mania ad.

We recap the US Title match. Booker was champion and Benoit got a best of seven series (which they did in WCW for the TV Title) for the title. Booker was hurt for the majority of it though so Benoit kept fighting Orton as a substitute. Orton won the series to keep the title on Booker. I never got what Orton got out of it. Benoit beat Finlay to get another shot then had to win another fatal fourway with JBL, Hardy and Jordan to finally get the shot. Ok so apparently the title was vacant and the series decided it. Makes a bit more sense.

US Title: Booker T vs. Chris Benoit

Before the match we waste more time as Booker says there’s no title match tonight and wants Teddy out here. Apparently he still isn’t healthy. Booker says he’s going to forfeit the title and Benoit gets it. What the heck? He leaves and Benoit grabs a mic shouting COWARD. Sharmell gets in his face and slaps him then does it again. Make that three. Booker runs in to blast him and it’s on. What happened to the forfeit? Is Benoit champion at the moment?

Benoit takes it to the floor and is all over him. Booker of course was faking the injury if you didn’t get that. If Cole can point out the obvious then so can I. Benoit chops the living tar out of him and blocks a cheating rollup to hammer away some more. Baseball slide sends Booker to the floor and he’s getting destroyed here. Booker claims he’s hurt again and tells the referee he needs to end this.

Naturally he’s faking again and Benoit eats steps. Booker gets kind of a superkick in the ring which hits Benoit in the chest for two. I’m trying very hard not to make Benoit jokes here and I’m losing my restraint abilities. Booker hooks a full nelson which gets him a grand total of nowhere and here come the Germans. Crossface doesn’t work and Booker gets a spin kick for two.

Booker and Benoit used to be best friends apparently. Why don’t I remember that at all? Probably because they’ve always been rivals but why care about things like history? Booker gets a long chinlock which gets him more or less nowhere. They chop it out which of course Benoit wins. Axe kick misses and here comes more Wolverine.

Benoit busts out Three Amigos to a nice reaction. Another big kick takes Benoit down. Booker is going down right Asian stereotype tonight. Benoit stops something from the top from Booker and chops away. Big old superplex follows some headbutts for two. Houston Hangover misses which is a move I’ve always liked. Rolling Germans hit Booker and he’s in big trouble. Cole keeps calling the Hangover a front flip and it’s getting on my nerves.

Benoit goes for the headbutt but just like he did to Booker it’s blocked. Axe kick gets two. Is there a white person that does that move? Booker does his rolling sunset flip out of the corner but gets countered into the Sharpshooter. Sharmell gets up so the hold doesn’t last long. Benoit gets it again and then lets it go to grab the Crossface to of course end it. Long match at nearly twenty minutes.

Rating: B. It’s Chris Benoit vs. Booker T. Did you expect a bad match here? This worked very well as you would expect it to with both guys working hard out there and the results coming out well. As I’ve said, a lot of the time a cure for the problems a company has is to just go out and have a good wrestling match. That’s what they did here and it’s got me wanting to watch more of the show. Can’t ask for more than that.

The fans tell Booker he tapped out. I think he knows that.

Rey and Benoit celebrate in the back. So does Teddy. And Matt. Lashley. And Scotty. And all of the roster. Dude, it’s the US Title. He didn’t get this kind of reception when he won the world title. And here’s Chavo and Vickie and Rey. Well of course it’s about Eddie. Have I mentioned I FREAKING HATE THESE REFERENCES??? Vickie is skinny here.

We recap Orton vs. Rey. Eddie dies so Rey got the push of a lifetime because of it. He came into the Rumble at #2 and won the thing, giving him the title shot. Orton got all ticked off at going out last and said that Eddie is burning. This led to Rey getting ticked off and putting up his title shot here tonight. Orton was evil here and since I was fed up beyond all belief with talking about Eddie I loved Orton here.

Rey Mysterio vs. Randy Orton

Winner goes to Mania for the world title shot. Orton is all chiseled here and the Legend Killer and not like orange. The fans chant for Eddie. Well he’s right there in the ring in the mask so it’s not like it’s going to take long to get him here. Orton overpowers him to start. It’s weird saying that as Orton is far from a power guy. Rey starts with regular stuff which doesn’t work that well. Ah there’s the speed and it of course works better.

Orton shouts to the crowd that he doesn’t need their help. He’s freaking evil looking and was awesome at this point. Orton takes over and pounds away with basic stuff. It’s so weird to see him using generic power moves rather than his usual stuff. Cole calls Orton a jerk. That’s so amusing now. Orton gets two on an Irish Whip. Who does he think he is, Billy Watson?

He follows that us with the Eddie chest slap which gets huge heat. Orton is as tall as Rey is when he’s on his knees. Rey kicks his head off and sends Orton to the floor though and the momentum doesn’t change though as Orton catches a rana in a powerbomb position and swings Rey’s body into the post like Jason did to that chick in Friday the 13th with the tree. FREAKING OW MAN!

Orton works on the arm which is hurt from going into the post like that. Rey starts a brief comeback but Orton gets one of my favorite moves as he gets Rey over his shoulder for a powerbomb them moves forward to snap Rey’s neck in a neckbreaker. That’s just awesome. And now back to the arm. That’s what we mean by psychology: he keeps going back to something injured. If you hurt a guy’s body part in a real fight, you would stay on it. That’s basic psychology.

Rey gets a rana out of nowhere but hurts his arm in the process. Nice work. Orton stomps on the arm so Cole thinks Randy is evil. Uh, isn’t that kind of like, smart? Arm gets rammed into the steps a bunch of times. Orton hooks one leg on a cover so Cole of course says he hooks both. Cole can’t even count to two. That sums him up very well I believe. Orton goes for the neckbreaker thing again but gets countered, complete with the most oversold armdrag ever.

Rey counters a middle rope electric chair drop into a sunset bomb for a long two. Tazz thinks it’s over more or less and I think he’s probably right. He means it’s over as in Rey has no more chances. Spinwheel kick sets up the Eddie dance as my eyes roll around my head. Seated Senton gets no cover. Rey gets a running neck snap which was rather cool. Orton’s head is busted open.

Orton catches an Asai moonsault attempt into a powerslam position but they botch the living heck out of what appeared to be a tornado DDT but Rey didn’t go down to the mat plus Orton went the wrong way so he looked like he just kind of fell down. Anyway, Orton pokes him in the eyes which gets him nowhere. Rey goes up but Orton dropkicks him on the way down. That was nice but could he get an RKO like that? I don’t think so!

Rey dropkicks him and Orton sells the heck out of it and he lands perfectly in position for the 619. Orton was overselling on purpose though as he ducks under the kick and grabs a rollup and the rope to get the pin and kill the life out of the crowd. The look on Rey’s face is straight up awesome. I love seeing children wanting to cry.

Rating: B-. The match was good for the most part with the arm stuff and the time went by very quickly, but there was something missing here and I’m not sure what it was. I think the problem is Orton had to alter his style too much which hurt things. It’s not bad really, but it wasn’t a great match. Oh and before I forget: HAHA YOU LOST REY! I BET EDDIE IS CRYING NOW BECAUSE YOU FREAKING SUCK AT LIFE! Ok I’m good now.

Orton grabs the mic and says he’s going to the main event of Wrestlemania. Oh of course Rey was put in too and won the title. The explanation was that Teddy just added him because there was never a limit on the amount of people in it. They do the big emotional leaving for Rey which makes me want to fast forward.

The announcers act like Orton shot Rey in the face or something.

We cut to Rey apologizing to the Guerreros in the back. Chavo says keep your chin up and they curse a lot. What do the Guerreros lose here? Eddie wasn’t going or anything so it’s just a guy that shot his mouth off and screwed up. Go get on Maury or something. Did I mention I REALLY hated this angle? The same roster that congratulated Benoit all looks at him, apparently not having moved since Benoit came by.

We recap the battle royal where Kurt jumped to Smackdown to win the world title due to Batista’s injury. He was celebrating and the gong went off. Do I need to explain this any further? This has been built up as a HUGE match and that’s exactly what it was supposed to be. They had fought for the title before but that was when Angle was still goofy so this is going to be a showdown. Angle gets in a great line: when that bell rings, I don’t have a soul either.

Smackdown World Title: Kurt Angle vs. The Undertaker

It’s the remix for Angle’s music here which I never liked. That title just looks AWESOME on him. He was a guy that was incredibly valuable to have on the roster for instances such as this. Batista was hurt and so they needed a credible champion. Angle is someone they could throw the title on and have it be completely realistic. That’s always a great thing and it worked perfectly here.

Taker literally takes four minutes for his entrance. Think he’s taking long enough? Cole’s voice sounds like it’s giving out. Angle tries to get a hold on him early on and Taker goes to the ropes. That’s a bit odd to see I’d think. Angle hits the floor when nothing works. Cole says neither of them have ever tapped. What the heck has he been watching for the seven years Angle has been in the company? He’s lost an Ultimate Submission match and Jericho made him tap on Raw once. Also Benoit made him tap multiple times. Yeah that’s nonsense.

Taker works a headlock which is odd to see him using. Off to the arm and a short arm scissors which gets him nowhere. They’re going back and forth here and it’s working for the most part. Definitely a slow build as we have nearly half an hour to go and no more matches. Old School connects and Taker busts out a Downward Spiral of all things for two.

Snake Eyes hit but Angle hits a SWEET release German for one. The dueling chants begin which makes sense as these are both faces. There’s some chick at ringside that screams louder than Melina. Taker gets knocked off the apron and into the railing. Angle dives at him and is caught before being rammed into the post. The apron legdrop is VINTAGE! Back in and Angle blocks a chokeslam with some kicks so Taker just hits him in the face to put him back down.

Angle goes for the knee and gets the post figure four. Solid stuff here so I apologize for the lack of humor. There’s nothing to make fun of. Patrick gives this big lecture to Angle about keeping it in the ring and Angle nods at it. Patrick turns around and Angle is right back out there which was rather funny. They’re building very slowly here but Angle is picking it up a bit.

Back to the floor again with Taker drilling him with knees. Taker’s knee is messed up a bit and this time he’s selling so we’ve got that going for once. It’s noticeable how much more swearing there is here. Angle grabs the legdrop on the apron this time and gets the ankle lock. Angle holds him on the floor against the ten count, breaking at seven and then breaking the count before going right back to the ankle. That’s sweet stuff there.

We hit the ring again and Taker is caught in another leg lock for a bit. More dueling chants start up. Taker counters mounted punching with a triangle choke and Angle is in trouble. Amazing that Fedor can’t last 10 seconds in one but Angle can last like 30 in it. We hit the floor again and Angle is in trouble. They’ve broken the count like 10 times so far which isn’t something you see that often. It adds some realism to the match as they’re not ignoring rules for the sake of convenience.

Taker clears off the announce table and then rolls in to break the count again, even though I’m not sure one was going on. Angle grabs Taker and puts him through the other announce table with the Angle Slam out of nowhere. Angle stops the count at 9 including some F Bombs. Back to the floor again with Angle pounding away. Taker wouldn’t have beat the count back in. He reverses Angle and sends him into the steps. GREAT match if you can’t tell that.

Taker goes up but gets caught and takes some punches. Angle sets for a suplex but Taker knocks him back. Angle is all like boy I said I’m suplexing you so I’m suplexing you and runs up the corner to throw Taker down in a belly to belly. Somehow that only gets two. Fans are way into this. Angle throws more punches so Taker kicks him in the face. Sometimes you can’t beat the simple stuff.

Chokeslam is countered into the ankle lock and Taker is reeling. Taker can’t shove him off so he pulls him in, grabs the head and locks on the triangle choke again. Angle reverses that and hooks the ankle lock one more time. Taker rolls through and finally gets out of it. Chokeslam mostly hits but Taker kind of dropped him which might have been intentional due to the ankle. That gets two as I’m loving this stuff.

Last Ride is reversed into a sunset flip and Angle grabs the ankle lock AGAIN for like what, the fifth time? Yeah two in the previous sequence and two on the floor. Dang man. Taker can’t get the ropes so he kicks Angle off AGAIN. Angle Slam connects for TWO. Sweet merciful crap this is awesome. Angle pulls down the straps as Taker sits up in a great visual.

They slug it out and Taker sends him in and grabs the Tombstone. Angle reverses and Taker reverses and ANGLE reverses into the SIXTH Ankle lock, this time with the grapevine attached. Taker raises his hand to tap and he’s in the middle of the ring. Taker rolls them over and kicks Angle in the face again to become the ONLY person I’ve ever seen to survive the grapevine ankle lock.

Angle slips up behind Taker as he gets up and hits ANOTHER Angle Slam (NINE freaking finishers from Angle if you’re keeping track) and Angle rolls him up but Taker busts out (and perhaps debuts) the Hell’s Gate (not called that yet and still called a triangle choke here. Thank you martial arts master Tazz) and Angle is in big trouble. Angle is almost out and after the second arm drop he pops up and jumps over into a cradle while the choke is still on and gets the three! Taker thinks he’s won and Angle is DONE. Post match Taker says he has Angle’s number. I guess he’ll text the rematch request.

Rating: A+. Screw Meltzer and his love of Japanese guys and his cruiserweight jazz. THIS is your match of the year. These two beat the heck out of each other and it was nothing but awesome the whole way. For some reason (Angle leaving for TNA) they never had the big rematch. THIS should have been the main event of Mania rather than a 9 minute triple threat with Angle dropping the belt to that freaking pest Rey so that Eddie could have his second moment at Mania.

Both guys looked awesome out there and they threw everything they had at each other and then the ending worked perfectly. Both guys more or less lost and it lets Taker keep his credibility. Much like the Benoit match at the 03 Rumble, Taker didn’t get beat so much as he got caught. That’s a very key thing and it helps a lot here. Excellent match and well worth going out to see.

Overall Rating: B-. Well there are six matches on this show. Three are boring beyond belief, two are good and one is great. The last hour and a half is great stuff but the first hour and fifteen minutes or so are just wretched. DEFINITELY check out Angle vs. Taker but the rest isn’t worth much. Booker vs. Benoit is good but they’ve had about 100 matches that are good so it’s nothing unique. Check out the main event, but I’d definitely watch this out of order if you’re going to watch it all. Actually skip the second and third matches. The opener is watchable and the last three are good. Yeah that should do it.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Monday Nitro #106
Date: September 22, 1997
Location: E Center, Salt Lake City, Utah
Attendance: 7,923
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Larry Zbyszko

This is a pretty big night in wrestling history. First of all, Raw is debuting in Madison Square Garden with a confrontation between Vince and Austin. Therefore WCW is likely going to try to do something huge of their own, which in this case is the debut of someone new. Other than that we’ve got Jarrett vs. Hennig for Curt’s new US Title. We’re getting closer to Halloween Havoc as well. Let’s get to it.

We open at the announce table with the announcers (including Tony dang it all) saying how great tonight is going to be for WCW. Apparently there’s an announcement from Commissioner Piper. Bischoff comes up and says tonight will be about the NWO but Larry argues back at him. We get a clip of Fall Brawl 1996 where Eric got beaten up by Hall and Nash. Zbyzsko says that Eric would rather join them rather than fight, which is why they’ll screw him over in the end.

Silver King vs. Rey Mysterio Jr.

So we have Silver King vs. the King of Mystery. Rey gives his mask to a fan and takes Silver down with a headscissors before hooking a front facelock. The fans see something in the crowd as Silver gets ranaed out to the floor. Oh it’s Raven coming to his seat again. Rey hits a split legged moonsault for two followed by a reverse moonsault out of the corner for what should have been the pin. West Coast Pop is countered into a sunset flip for two for Silver. Cue Eddie as Rey gets another two off a rana. A superkick by Silver sets up a missed moonsault and the West Coast Pop gets the pin.

Rating: C. This would have been better if they cut out about 45 seconds. It was just a spot fest but some of the stuff looked great, especially when you consider how chubby Silver King was. The reverse rana looked great and probably should have ended things, but they needed to have Eddie out there so it’s understandable.

Eddie and Rey stare each other down to take us to a break.

Bill Goldberg vs. Hugh Morrus

Tenay has no idea who Goldberg is, shocking the other announcers. Larry: “YOU DON’T KNOW?” They trade hammerlocks to start and seem to miss each other a bit. Goldberg takes him down into a knee bar and pounds away in the corner. Morrus comes out of the corner with a middle rope clothesline and No Laughing Matter hits….for two? Goldberg pops up from a shoulder block and hits a powerslam and a regular slam to follow it up. The yet to be named Jackhammer ends this quick. As Goldberg says after the match: “That’s #1”.

Goldberg has nothing to say post match.

The NWO shows us some highlights of the Anderson parody.

We get a clip of Larry costing Hall his match at Fall Brawl. Tony: “This is a moment we will never forget.” I forgot it in about 12 seconds.

TV Title: Alex Wright vs. Disco Inferno

Wright is defending. Disco shoves him into the corner and gets slapped which fires him up. The fans don’t like Wright at all which is a good sign for him. Wright gets sent to the floor and walks in front of Raven before going back inside to crank on Disco’s arm. We take a break and come back with the champion hitting a spinwheel kick before stomping on Disco in the corner.

You would think the champion would follow up there but instead it’s time to dance. A belly to back suplex puts Wright down but he comes back with a back elbow for two. Wright hits a top rope stomp for no cover because it’s time to dance even more. Disco dodges a charge in the corner and pounds away before crotching Wright on the top rope. A swinging neckbreaker gets two for Disco but he misses a middle rope elbow. They both miss a few moves before both trying cross bodies at the same time. They collide in the air and Disco falls on top for the pin and the title in a shocker.

Rating: D+. The match itself wasn’t much but to say this was a surprise is an understatement. On the other hand though, I have almost no idea what the point is in having Disco win the title when Wright has been on fire lately and has the crowd HATING him. Disco on the other hand was just a comedy guy who hadn’t done anything in his entire WCW run until this point.

Post match here’s Jackie to say that she knows why Disco has been gone for six months and wants a match right now. Disco blows her off. I don’t see this ending well.

Here are Hall and Syxx to ask who the fans are here to see. Hall rips on Larry Z a bit for costing him a match at the PPV before challenging Luger to a rematch. When there’s no Lex, Hall calls out Larry Z instead. Zbyszko comes to the ring but says he won’t get in until it’s one on one. The man was boring as sin but he wasn’t an idiot. Syxx won’t leave so Larry walks away. We do however get someone to answer Hall’s challenge.

Scott Hall vs. Hector Garza

Hall beats on Garza to start and rips referee Mark Curtis’ pocket off. A fallaway slam off the middle rope puts Garza down before tormenting the referee again. Garza grabs a rollup out of nowhere for the shocking pin.

Hall destroys Garza and Curtis post match.

It’s Hour #2.

Ciclope/Juventud Guerrera/Lizmark Jr./Ultimo Dragon vs. Villanos/La Parka/Psychosis

Dragon and Psychosis start things off with Dragon taking over quickly before doing the headstand in the corner. He throws in some splits for good measure and things start speeding up. We’re in lucha rules so hitting the floor is as good as a tag. Things start going fast enough that I can’t keep up with them. Ciclope superkicks a Villano to the floor before it’s Lizmark vs. the other Villano.

Everything breaks down and I have no idea who is legal here. We finally get down to a Vllano vs. Lizmark but they both go to the floor almost immediately. Lizmark hits a big dive onto said Villano but hurts his knee in the process. Now it’s time for everyone to unleash the dives until it’s Dragon vs. Psychosis. Sonny Onoo breaks up the super rana but Psychosis dives onto Sonny by mistake. Back inside Juvy crotches La Parka and hits a springboard rana to get him back to the mat. A rolling cradle gets the pin for Juvy on La Parka.

Rating: C+. This was INSANE with everyone diving at various times and no coherence at all. That’s what a match like this is supposed to be like though and the fans were getting into it. This is when things were still awesome with all of the diving before people started imitating this style and not being as good at it.

Here’s Commissioner Piper to make Luger vs. Hall again at Halloween Havoc, but with Larry as a special referee. The cage match with Hogan is still on and even though “NWA” is for life, Piper is forever. Somehow this took over five minutes.

Lee Marshall wastes a minute of our time.

Steiner Brothers vs. Faces of Fear

Scott and Meng start things off with the Steiner taking him down by the arm. They collide a few times with neither guy being able to move. They try it again and this time Steiner runs him over. Everything breaks down and the Steiners clear the ring. We settle down to Barbarian vs. Rick with Rick powerslamming Barbie down for two before it’s back to Scott.

A full nelson suplex puts Barbarian down but here’s Meng for their backdrop into a powerbomb spot for two. The monsters hit a double headbutt to Scott before a slam gets two for Barbarian. Scott comes back with a double clothesline and there’s the hot tag to Rick. Everything breaks down but Meng breaks up the Steiner Bulldog. Meng escapes a few suplexes and the Tongan Death Grip pins Rick.

Rating: C. This was a decent power brawl with a surprising ending. The Faces of Fear continued to win matches which would lead nowhere while the Steiners would get even more tag title matches against the Outsiders. This was a decent match though and I can’t believe there was a clean loss for the Steiners.

Here are Hogan and Bischoff with Hollywood wearing Flair’s robe. Naturally Tony is sickened by this, but that happens whenever there’s a stiff breeze around Nitro. Hogan wants Sting as usual and bows to Hennig for what he did at Fall Brawl. Piper is going to go down at Havoc.

Post break Savage says Liz will be walking down the aisle with Hennig tonight. Ok then.

Randy Savage vs. Stevie Richards

Savage stalls to start. Again Richards? Raven is watching from ringside as usual before we head inside for Randy pounds away. Even LIZ gets in some choking. Savage drops Richards on the barricade in front of Raven which causes a staredown. Now THAT is a feud that sounds intriguing. Back in and the big elbow ends this easily. Total squash and not enough actual wrestling to rate.

Post match Raven gets in and pulls up his knee pads but lays out Richards instead.

Harlem Heat vs. Scott Norton/Konnan

There’s no Stevie for no apparent reason. Booker says Ray has pulled his Achilles so he’ll fight either Konnan or Norton right now. The NWO says this is supposed to be a tag match so it’s a handicap match. Konnan starts and misses a charge into the corner but comes back with a backdrop. That gets him nowhere as Booker pops up with a SPINAROONI and the side kick for two.

Booker tries to speed things up but Norton low bridges him to the floor. Even Vincent gets in some shots before it’s back inside for a full nelson slam from Booker. Booker keeps fighting back but eventually is caught in a spike piledriver to kill him dead. In a really stupid ending, Vincent comes in to beat on Booker as well for the DQ. Was there a point to this that I’m just missing?

Rating: D. This was barely long enough to rate and it wasn’t any good on top of that. Booker would go on to huge heights while Konnan and Norton never were a full time team. I’m assuming Buff is hurt or maybe they’re just swapping the guys out for fun at this point. This came off like pure filler.

The Nitro Girls dance a bit.

US Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Curt Hennig

Feeling out process to start with Hennig being sent to the floor. Back in and Curt gets sent right back outside as we’re filling in time. Back in again and Jeff hits a dropkick for two, sending the champion right back out to the floor. Curt comes in again and goes for the leg, hitting a chop block and wrapping it around the post. Hennig tries a chair shot against the post but Jeff sends Hennig into the chair instead.

A hot shot into the barricade has Hennig in trouble but the crowd isn’t all that interested. Granted it’s probably because that’s Jeff Jarrett out there beating Hennig up. Curt clotheslines Jeff out to the floor again (noticing a pattern here?) but Jeff crotches him against the post to take over. A swinging neckbreaker hits Perfect to put both guys down.

There’s a sleeper by Curt which doesn’t last long at all. Hennig fires off more kicks to Jeff but walks into a DDT for no cover. Now Jeff starts going after Hennig’s knee before hitting the signature slingshot to Curt. Liz distracts the referee as Jeff puts on the Figure Four. Savage sneaks in to hand Curt the title which knocks out Jeff to allow for the PerfectPlex to retain.

Rating: D+. You know for two guys who are as old school as these two, the chemistry wasn’t working at all here. They spent a lot of the time on the floor but the crowd didn’t seem to care at all. Like I said though, Jarrett didn’t get anyone to care and the match was heatless as a result. Thankfully he would be gone in two weeks.

Post match Jarrett gets beaten down until Giant makes the save to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. This wasn’t their best show of the year. Other than Goldberg debuting which wasn’t a big deal for a long time, not a lot happened on this show. We had two of the top matches officially announced even though it was clear those were already going to happen. This wasn’t a bad show but there’s nothing on it worth seeing other than a three minute match for history’s sake.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Mid-South Championship Wrestling
Date: January 20, 1984
Location: Irish McNeil Boys Club, Shreveport, Louisiana
Commentators: Boyd Pierce, Bill Watts

No Mercy is downloading so it’s back to Louisiana. I really liked this one last time so hopefully it’ll still be good again here. Last time we saw Duggan and JYD feuding with the Russians while Magnum TA got tarred and feathered. The Midnight Express is running around and being all Midnight Express kinds of evil which is always fun. Let’s get to it.

Opening sequence opens us up in a sequential way.

Jim Cornetee is with Watts. Watts says that there have been a lot of managers but Cornette is the first mama’s boy. Cornette asks why he should have to work for anything when he can call his mama (on Planet Funk?) and have her buy it for him. We get a clip of Mr. Wrestling II and Magnum saying they’re awesome. Cornette interrupted them and wanted to know when the Midnight Express would get a title shot. The champs call Cornette a chicken and he leaves.

Back to the live video and Cornette says I told you so, and we get a clip of the tarring and feathering by the Express last week and the champs’ promo after it. Mr. Wrestling II promises some plucking. You know for an hour long show, spending the first ten minutes plus on a recap is probably not the best use of TV time. Cornette: “Why don’t you pluck your partner?” Jim promises more violence if the Express doesn’t get the title match. Mid-South has fined Cornette $5000 but Cornette says that’s just a phone call home to mother.

Krusher Darsow vs. Terry Taylor

This is supposed to be Volkoff but he’s injured. Darsow jumps him to start but Taylor comes back with elbows. He slams Darsow and hooks an abdominal stretch and Volkoff runs in for the quick DQ.

Taylor dropkicks Darsow to the floor but Volkoff puts a rope around Taylor’s throat. He tries to hang Taylor over his back but Taylor flips out of it. Darsow comes back in and they hang him over the top rope. Some wrestlers make the save.

Roger Bond/Mike Jackson vs. Midnight Express

The tag champions are on commentary. Cornette has a bag of feathers which he’s blowing in the direction of Magnum. Cornette runs his mouth a lot to start. Condrey and Jackson start things off. Jackson hits a cross body for two and a dropkick puts Condrey down. It’s off to Eaton who has some better luck. Back to Condrey who beats on Bond for awhile. Eaton slams Bond down and hits a middle rope knee. The Express tags in and out very fast. Wrestling II is giving Eaton pointers which is cool to hear. Condrey hits a powerslam off the middle rope which sets up their double team elbow/drop for the pin. Squash.

The Express destroys both guys post match and set to tar and feather Bond but Magnum runs in for the save. Apparently that costs them $2500.

Buddy Landell vs. Mike Starbuck

Landell is basically famous for looking exactly like Ric Flair and copying everything he did. Landell controls with ease and puts a full nelson on him as Mike’s face is on the mat. A backbreaker and elbow drop gets the pin.

Brian Adidas vs. Mickey Henry

There’s going to be a TV Title tournament coming up. Adidas control to start as we hear about a new team coming called the Rock N Roll Express. Henry grabs a headlock and hits Brian in the ribs. Adidas comes back with a dropkick and botches a leap frog, a victory roll and most of a small package but the last one gets the pin. That was a horrible ending sequence.

Masao Ito vs. Rick Rood

Rood offers a handshake but is turned down. He towers over Ito here. Ito stomps him down and chops a lot. He hooks a choke of some kind which gets Rood a DQ win.

Rood is bleeding from the mouth as Ito won’t let it go.

Here’s a video on the Rock N Roll Express set to I Love Rock And Roll by Joan Jett. It’s a music video which is more 80s than Hulk Hogan, Mr. T and the Karate Kid going Back to the Future to bust ghosts to hair metal.

Watts and Boyd wrap up the show.

Overall Rating: C+. I still really like this show. They’re efficient with their stories and you get a nice mix of squashes to keep the show moving. Cornette is at his best here with being a mama’s boy that you want to punch in the face. Fun show and this is something I’d definitely watch if it aired today.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Royal Rumble 2006
Date: January 29, 2006
Location: American Airlines Arena, Miami, Florida
Attendance: 16,178
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, Joey Styles, Tazz

Eddie Guerrero. If you honestly believe this show is about anyone but him, you’re completely wrong and missing the point. Tonight’s show is about milking as much as we possibly can out of Eddie’s dead body, because the entirety of the Smackdown main event scene until Wrestlemania (and even glimpses of it for years to come) would be about Rey Mysterio fighting for Eddie’s memory against people like Orton. I never have been comfortable with this but it is what it is. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about Mark Henry vs. Kurt Angle. The Rumble and Edge vs. Cena gets a little time as well.

Cruiserweight Title: Gregory Helms vs. Kid Kash vs. Funaki vs. Jamie Noble vs. Nunzio vs. Paul London

Kid Kash is champion coming in and this is Texas Tornado rules and one fall to a finish. Helms is from Raw but is here because it’s an open invitational. It’s a big brawl to start and everyone gangs up on Helms. I don’t know if there was a delay of some sort or just a really bad sign, but there are dozens if not hundreds of empty seats visible in the lower arena, most of them opposite the hard camera.

Helms gets beaten into the corner but Kash pulls some other people off for no apparent reason. Nunzio slams Kash onto the mat for one Noble gets two on Nunzio off a powerslam as London hits a dropsalt for two on Noble and Nunzio. Wait apparently those red seats are stairs. Those are rather distracting and the seating structure is odd as there’s a group of about eight seats per row then another set of stairs as opposed to most arenas where there are about twice that many in a row. At least the place isn’t as empty as it seemed.

Nunzio hits a slingshot to send Noble into the corner and Funaki adds a bulldog for two. We finally get to the dives with Nunzio diving on a pair of guys, allowing Noble to get two on Kash via a leg lariat. Noble dives on Helms and Nunzio on the floor and Funaki is knocked off the top onto Nunzio and Noble. London kicks Kash to the floor as well and dives on everyone not named Helms with a shooting star off the top.

Back in and London loads up a shooting star press onto Kash but Helms goes up top at the same time and hooks a swinging neckbreaker to bring London down for two. A brainbuster from Kash kills London again but two guys come in for the save. All six guys are back in the ring now and Kash gets two off a Backstabber on Nunzio. Funaki can’t hit a tornado DDT on Noble and gets caught in a gutbuster for trying. Noble gets sent to the floor by Helms and Gregory hits a Shining Wizard out of nowhere for the pin on Funaki and the title.

Rating: C+. What are you expecting to find here? It’s six guys in the ring all at once and going nuts on each other with spots. There isn’t supposed to be any sort of story or flow to it and there certainly wasn’t here. It was the right choice for an opener and the match worked well enough for its purpose. Fine but nothing memorable at all. Helms would hold the title for over a year.

Teddy gushes to Vince about how excited he is over the Rumble. Vince is happy because he has Torrie, Victoria and Candace Michelle doing the drawing. They were a heel Divas stable at the time which didn’t work at all. HHH and Orton come in to draw and only the latter seems pleased with his number. Amazingly enough, these guys got the EXACT SAME NUMBERS that Guerrero and Flair got when they came in to draw last year.

Trish is looking GREAT in a referee outfit when Mickie, currently the psycho lesbian, comes up and says she loves Trish. Ok then.

Mickie James vs. Ashley Massaro

Trish is referee and I didn’t realize she was in some barely there shorts. I miss Mickie wearing those skirts that often flew up above her waist. The problem with Ashley was simple: she wasn’t that good. Mickie cranks on the arm but Ashley counters into a wristlock of her own. Massaro armdrags Mickie down and it’s clearly Mickie flipping while Ashley moves her arm.

James heads to the floor to get a breather but Ashley hits a clothesline off the apron to take her down. Back in and Mickie snaps, basically turning heel mid-match. Mickie hooks a standing half crab to fill in some time as it’s clear Ashley has nothing to do here. We head to the floor where Mickie rams Ashley’s ribs into the post. Back in and Mickie hooks a bow and arrow hold to work on the back even more.

Ashley catches an incoming kick from Mickie and starts her “offense” but can barely hook a crucifix. The only good thing about it was Mickie’s skirt flying up but the rollup only gets two. Massaro shoves Ashley into the corner and the fans are openly booing now. She’s just absolutely horrible and thankfully Mickie kind of powerbombs her out of the corner for the sloppy pin.

Rating: D. Again, anything with Trish looking that hot involved can’t be considered a failure whatsoever. She was likely there because it was clear that the match was going to be horrible and the fans had to have something to be distracted by. Thankfully Trish and Mickie would get to have their excellent Mania match instead of another Ashley mess. Terrible stuff but hot women in tiny outfits make up for it.

Big Show draws his number. Rey comes in to talk about Eddie a bit. Apparently Eddie is joking with Rey by giving him this number.

John Bradshaw Layfield vs. Boogeyman

This is part of an ongoing feud, which involved Boogeyman eating a growth off of Jillian Hall’s face. Do yourself a favor and don’t ask. Oh and I forgot to mention the set. It’s themed like a coliseum with guards opening up the doors for the wrestlers to come in. They did that at some of the old King of the Rings and I still like it.

John hides behind Jillian for awhile and then bails to the floor, leaving the blonde chick to get stalked. Boogeyman puts worms in his mouth and spits them into Jillian’s mouth. Boogey gets sent to the floor and into the steps before JBL chokes away a bit more. The Clothesline misses and a pumphandle powerslam ends JBL in less than two minutes. I have no idea what the point of this was.

Mama Benjamin comes in and hits on Vince. Thankfully Shelton comes in to save Vince from a future paternity suit. Melina comes in to hit on Shelton but Mama takes him away quickly. Mama Benjamin was one of those ideas that didn’t make a ton of sense and didn’t accomplish anything but it certainly exists. MNM draws their numbers as well. Vince and hits girls sit on the couch to watch the Rumble.

Video on the Rumble, which says everyone thinks they’ll win. Vince is vindictive against Shawn around this time too. Apparently there will be some returns tonight as well.

Before the Rumble starts, the Spirit Squad comes out to give us a chant.

Royal Rumble

HHH is #1 and Mysterio is #2, naturally coming out in a lowrider and an Eddie shirt. HHH tries to power him down to start but Rey comes back with kicks to the knee. Rey hits a headscissors to take HHH down and into the corner but HHH lifts him to the apron. Rey comes back with a springboard dropkick to the back but HHH ducks the 619. Simon Dean is #3 and goes after Rey to a bunch of boos. Dean sends him to the apron and wants a high five from HHH but gets punched in the face and hit by a seated senton. The elimination is academic.

Rey takes HHH down and hits a Bronco Buster as Psychosis is #4. He immediately goes after Rey before kicking HHH down. Psychosis busts out a freaky move where he hooks a Rock Bottom grip on Rey but lifts him into the air and slams Rey face down. Rey gets put in a Razor’s Edge position but ranas Psychosis out for the elimination. Ric Flair is #5 and goes right for HHH. They slug it out with Flair taking over but ducking his head into the facebuster. Ric comes back with a crotch grab but HHH rakes the eyes and backdrops Flair out.

Big Show, who hates HHH at the moment, is #6. They were feuding at this time, I believe over HHH injuring Big Show’s hand with the hammer. Show chops him in the corner and HHH falls forward onto Show’s chest. A headbutt keeps Rey down and there’s a side slam to HHH. Like an idiot, Big Show picks up HHH and slams him to the mat instead of to the floor. Coach is #7 and makes it about thirty seconds before Show puts him out.

Show does that stupid slam thing to HHH AGAIN. I’m sure that won’t come back to haunt him or anything. The chokeslam takes HHH down again and here’s Lashley at #8. He and Show slug it out with Show getting backdropped to the mat. Kane, Big Show’s tag champion partner at this point, is #9. He and Lashley stare it down and Kane kicks Lashley’s head off.

Lashley immediately comes back with an overhead belly to belly and a third press slam to HHH. Kane takes a Dominator and Sylvan, the “Smackdown fashion consultant” is #10 and lasts about 18 seconds before Lashley throws him out. Unfortunately he turns around and gets caught in a double chokeslam followed by the elimination. The partners quickly turn on each other with Kane getting a boot up to stop a charging Show. They fight to the ropes and HHH runs up to throw them both out, emulating the same thing Shawn did in 1996 with Vader and Yokozuna.

Carlito is #11 and goes for Mysterio as is the theme tonight. There’s a Backstabber to put Rey down in the corner, where he’s been for a lot of the match tonight. Carlito punches HHH down and here’s Benoit at #12. Everyone gets a German and Carlito taps to a Crossface which means nothing here. HHH breaks it up for no apparent reason and whips Benoit hard into the corner.

The Game puts Benoit on the apron and they fight over a suplex with Benoit winding up on the top rope. Benoit headbutts HHH down and hits the Swan Dive before Booker T is #13. He’s US Champion here and in tights, which suggests an injury to me. Oh yeah he’s barely moving out there and just letting Benoit chop him. Benoit dumps him in about 20 seconds so yeah Booker must have been hurt.

Benoit chops on HHH until Joey Mercury is #14. Mercury fires off dropkicks but gets caught in Rolling Germans. Carlito jumps Benoit to break it up and Mercury pounds on Benoit a bit. Freaking Tatanka is #15, giving us a group of Mysterio, HHH, Carlito, Benoit, Mercury and Tatanka. Seriously why did the bring TATANKA back? He fires off chops as the fans do the Seminole chant.

Johnny Nitro is #16 to give us the Smackdown tag champions in the ring at the same time. HHH is upside down as Tatanka chops Nitro down. Nitro is John Morrison if you don’t remember him. Mysterio is finally back to his feet after being down for about half the time he’s been in the match. Trevor Murdoch is #17 and chops away on Tatanka as the match calms down again. Eugene is #18 and immediately Hulks Up, hooking an airplane spin on Murdoch. Mysterio hits a double bulldog to take both guys down to remind us that he’s still there.

Road Warrior Animal is #18 and immediately takes MNM’s heads off with a double clothesline. A powerslam puts Nitro down and we hit another lull. RVD is #20 and is back for the first time in nearly a year. Animal and Benoit have a staredown until Benoit gets kicked in the face. RVD kicks MNM down and backdrops Animal out to finally clear some room out in the ring.

Orlando Jordan is #21 and no one cares. Van Dam hits a kick to Carlito’s face off the top and Chavo Guerrero is #22. Nitro takes Three Amigos but Chavo goes up and is immediately knocked out by HHH. Matt Hardy is #23 and hits the Twist of Fate on Jordan. RVD and Rey combine to get HHH to the apron but they can’t get him out. MNM put out Tatanka and there are way too many people in this match with three letter initials. Super Crazy is #24 and literally flips to the ring.

At the moment we’ve got HHH, Mysterio, Carlito, Benoit, Mercury, Nitro, Murdoch, Eugene, RVD, Jordan, Hardy, Crazy and now Shawn Michaels at #25. Why are there THIRTEEN PEOPLE in the ring at once? Everyone swarms Shawn but he punches them all off until Murdoch gets in some shots on him in the corner. There goes Trevor and Carlito knocks Shawn to the apron but not out.

Chris Masters is #26 and Hardy sends HHH to the apron. Viscera is #27 in his World’s Largest Love Machine period. He sits on Matt and does his anal rape thing as Mercury saves himself from being eliminated. Matt gets some boots up in the corner but is thrown out pretty quickly thereafter. Shelton is #28 and Benoit eliminates Eugene. Goldust returns at #29 and chops a bunch of people to no reaction.

Orton is FINALLY #30, giving us a final group of HHH, Mysterio, Carlito, Benoit, Mercury, Nitro, RVD, Jordan, Crazy, HBK, Masters, Viscera, Benjamin, Goldust and Orton, or HALF THE PEOPLE IN THE MATCH. To give you an idea of how lame the star power is other than like three people in this, the final five were Masters, Viscera, Shelton, Goldust and Orton. Other than Randy that’s like a medium budget indy show, not the last five entrants to the Royal Rumble.

Randy almost immediately puts out Benoit. Seriously? You can’t put out Masters or Jordan? It just HAD TO BE Benoit??? An RKO takes down Viscera so Masters and Carlito can throw him out. Carlito immediately turns on his partner and dumps Masters. Goldie loads up Shattered Dreams on Carlito and gets in a good kick, only to be eliminated by RVD. Orton puts out Jordan and Shawn and HHH finally go at it. MNM double teams Shawn but gets eliminated for their efforts.

Shawn has to skin the cat to stay in and turns into a kick to the head from Shelton. Michaels is cool with that and sends Shelton to the apron followed by a superkick to eliminate him. This brings out Vince who hates Shawn and the distraction lets Shane run in and dump HBK. Shawn is ticked and runs back in and superkicks HHH after escaping a Pedigree attempt. He goes after Vince but a single referee stops him. Ok then.

We’re down to Carlito, Van Dam, HHH, Mysterio and Orton. Van Dam kicks Carlito out and we’re down to four. Van Dam kicks Orton in the head and teams up with Mysterio to beat on the Evolution guys. Rob goes up top but HHH crotches him and sends Rey into the corner to knock Van Dam out, getting us down to three. Evolution teams up on Rey but he knocks them both into the ropes for a double 619. Orton takes the seated senton but HHH clotheslines Rey down.

Orton powerslams HHH down but the RKO is countered into a spinebuster. HHH goes after Rey and gets flipped out to get us down to two. Cole’s voice is almost gone. HHH, ever the nice guy, pulls Rey to the floor and sends him into the steps. Mysterio is basically dead so Orton takes his sweet time. That’s his downfall though, as Rey counters the elimination attempt into a rana and sends Orton out for the win. Naturally he had to be #2 which the WWE considers less than #1 for absolutely no apparent reason, but that’s HHH for you.

Rating: C-. This isn’t a bad match, but man alive is it boring. There are three major problems in this match. First of all, there were WAY too many people in the ring at most given times. Like I said, once Orton got in there we had fifteen people in the ring at once. That’s double what the number should be around and it clutters things up way too much with that many people in there.

Second, as I touched on near the end, the talent pool was pretty shallow here. I mean, MNM aren’t bad but they don’t need to be in the final grouping of the Rumble. Guys like Masters and Carlito should have been eliminated earlier but just stuck in there. That gets old fast and it was begging for someone like Shawn to come in there and eliminate like five guys at once.

Finally, since there were so many people in there at once, it was hard to focus on any single story. You had stuff like HHH trying to go wire to wire but that got lost in the shuffle. Rey was on the mat for long stretches of time so he wasn’t really noticed either. Shawn’s issues with Vince only popped up for the elimination and were only touched on. When you can’t focus on one thing, you can’t focus on anything and that makes for a dull match. One good thing was that Rey wasn’t a guaranteed winner, so there was some drama. It’s not a bad Rumble but it was badly run.

Mickie comes in to hit on Trish as she does an interview on WWE.com.

Rey celebrates when Edge comes in and says don’t even think of challenging him at Mania.

We recap Edge vs. Cena. Edge won MITB back at Mania and waited nine months before cashing in on Cena after Cena survived the Elimination Chamber. Tonight is the rematch three weeks later.

Raw World Title: John Cena vs. Edge

Cena walks across a catwalk that lowered from the ceiling and hops in over the top. You know, in case it’s wasn’t clear enough that Edge had no chance here. Cena clotheslines him down to start but has to chase Edge back inside, allowing the champion to send Cena into the buckle. We head to the floor again with Cena having to avoid Lita and getting sent into the steps as a result. A baseball slide sends Cena over the barricade and the match stops again.

Edge tries for a countout but Cena DIVES back in at nine. Back in and Cena pounds away but charges into a spinwheel kick for two from the Canadian. Edge punches Cena to the floor again but goes after him instead of going for the countout again. Cena gets sent into the steps and back inside a missile dropkick gets two for the champion. Edge loads up a superplex but gets shoved off, only to avoid a guillotine legdrop from Cena.

Cena grabs a quick FU attempt but Edge counters into a rollup for two. A big boot puts Cena down but he rolls through a top rope cross body for two. Edge tries a rear naked choke of all things which Cena eventually breaks up. The spear misses and there’s a DDT to put both guys down. It’s Cena up first to start his finishing sequence but Lita distracts the referee. Edge misses a charge and is sent into Lita, setting up Cena for the FU and STFU to get the title back.

Rating: D+. This was a world title match at the Royal Rumble? Why? Edge never felt like he had Cena in trouble and the match wasn’t anything that you would remember five minutes after it ended. Lita’s cleavage was awesome but when that’s the best thing about a match….well you shouldn’t be surprised because it often was in Edge’s matches, but still, pretty lame match here that made Edge look like a footnote. Obviously that would change, but not a good start for him here.

Edge freaks out on Todd Grisham in the back. Edge storms off and Lita panics a bit. We get a random Hacksaw Jim Duggan cameo (does anyone do those better?) to call her a HO!

We recap Angle vs. Henry. Batista had been scheduled to face henry but tore his triceps and had to vacate the title. Angle won the title in a battle royal and gets to defend here. The idea is that Henry is way too strong for Angle. Seriously, that’s the story. Why this main evented the show isn’t quite clear.

Angle is all I’M THE BEST WRESTLER IN THE WORLD and no one can beat me. He leaves but comes back to tell Mark Henry that he SUCKS. This version of Angle was AWESOME, as he would just go out there and go beast mode on everyone and make them look like fools trying to keep up with him. Also he was perfect for a quick title reign like this as no one would question him popping up out of nowhere and taking the title. Those kind of people are hard to find but Kurt was one of them.

Smackdown World Title: Kurt Angle vs. Mark Henry

Angle gets overpowered to start. That’s about all there is to say for the first two minutes or so, as Kurt keeps getting shoved around and then taken to the floor. Henry whips him into the steps and then stands on Angle’s chest back inside. We hit a bearhug for a bit until Angle hiptosses out of it. He tries a cross body like an imbecile but rolls out of the World’s Strongest Slam. The ankle lock and Angle Slam are no good so Henry clubs him down again.

Instead Angle hits a German (kind of) to put both guys down. The Angle Slam gets two (duh) and the ankle lock is broken up again. The counter causes the referee to get bumped so Angle gets a chair. A low blow and two chair shots take Henry down for two, so Angle takes a buckle off. Kurt drop toeholds him into the buckle and rolls Henry up to retain. Our hero everyone.

Rating: D. Seriously, why was this……

And a gong strikes. That’s why.

As for the match, it sucked pretty terribly. Why would we buy Henry as a potential champion here after him showing no proof of being at that level? The match wasn’t even ten minutes long, making it feel much more like a TV match than a PPV title match. I know they wanted to do the big ending with Taker, but there had to be a better way to do it.

Taker comes out in a freaking horse drawn chariot and motions that he wants the title. Then he shoots lightning from his hands at the stuff over the ring, before slamming his arms down to send lightning at the posts. The ring collapses to end the show. Yeah that happened.

Overall Rating: D. I watched this show over the course of two days, and honestly the only thing that came to my mind other than the last ten minutes of it was how Trish looked in that referee outfit. That’s how completely forgettable this show is. Nothing came out of this show as Cena was champion all over again, making the last three weeks feel like nothing. Nothing to see here and definitely not worth seeing.

Ratings Comparison

Gregory Helms vs. Kid Kash vs. Funaki vs. Jamie Noble vs. Nunzio vs. Paul London

Original: B-

Redo: C+

Mickie James vs. Ashley Massaro

Original: C-

Redo: D

Boogeyman vs. John Bradshaw Layfield

Original: F-

Redo: N/A

Royal Rumble

Original: D

Redo: C-

John Cena vs. Edge

Original: B

Redo: D+

Kurt Angle vs. Mark Henry

Original: D-

Redo: D

Overall Rating

Original: C-

Redo: D

What was I on for that Edge vs. Cena match?

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/01/25/royal-rumble-count-up-2006-eddie-guerrero-puts-on-a-mask-and-wins-the-rumble/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

On the right hand side of the screen where the other pages of reviews are listed, you’ll now find an On This Day page listed where you can find a link to every show in the series posted.  I’ll keep it updated daily

KB